The Clinton, Obama and Edwards Coalitions

by: Chris Bowers

Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 09:43


Poblano has conducted an interesting analysis of the New Hampshire vote in 2004 and 2008, using a multiple regression analysis on a town by town basis. The purpose of the analysis is to estimate who 2008 supporters of Clinton, Obama and Edwards backed in 2004. Since the study is based at the town level, rather than the more precise individual voter level, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it is a compelling insight into the different coalitions within the Democratic Party:

This regression produces a number of coefficients that represent how much support was transferred from one candidate to another.  For example, if the coefficient between John Kerry and Hillary Clinton is .73, that means that for every percentage point that Kerry had in a district in 2004, Hillary tended to pick up .73 percentage points in 2008.  (…)

Clinton
.73  Kerry
.66  Lieberman
.18  Clark
.12  Edwards '04
-.05 Dean

Obama
.93  Dean 
.45  Clark 
.38  Edwards '04 
.15  Lieberman 
.09  Kerry

Edwards (2008)
.37  Edwards '04
.37  Clark
.24  Kerry
.15  Lieberman
.00  Dean

As Matt noted yesterday, the campaign seems to be coming down to identity politics. Activists and campaigns seem ready to play full hands of age, race and gender cards. With Obama relying primarily on non-Kerry supporters in New Hampshire, in order to win the nomination nationwide he will need both the overwhelming backing of African-Americans and a large influx of new primary voters. Otherwise, Clinton's domination of the Kerry vote will simply be too much. In 2004, Nevada was one of Kerry's best states, as he secured 64% in the February 14th caucuses. If Clinton's campaign really is the Kerry and Lieberman coalitions reborn, while Obama and Edwards are splitting the remainder, then Clinton probably wins out. Older women are the largest identity group in the Democratic primary electorate. It will take both a nearly unified, and greatly expanded, progressive creative class plus African-American coalition to have any chance against her.

Chris Bowers :: The Clinton, Obama and Edwards Coalitions

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The Clinton, Obama and Edwards Coalitions | 39 comments
Dean Voters.... (4.00 / 2)
Interesting that Edwards is the 'liberal' candidate in this campaign and has Joe Trippi as his manager and yet Obama got 93 of the Dean vote, and Edwards and Clinton got none.

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Records Count (4.00 / 1)
It looks like records count. I love Edwards rhetoric this time, but his rhetoric mysteriously has changed over the years, seemingly to whatever is popular at the time, and what won't make him look ridiculous.

The way I see it, Edwards saw that the war was the big issue this time, and that unfortunately for him, he was for the war way back when he was still a Senator. So he shaped himself as the poverty candidate, which was the best he could do.

It's also hard to run on your record when your congressional record is a big empty hole for the last three years.

It's also just distasteful to me, and I think to other people, that he's done basically nothing but run for office non-stop since 2003.

His words are pretty, but no one seems to care, because he comes off as empty.

[ Parent ]
Will the real Edwards please stand up? (0.00 / 0)
I have a hangover from the last election. Which is the real Edwards?

The way I see it, Edwards saw that the war was the big issue this time, and that unfortunately for him, he was for the war way back when he was still a Senator. So he shaped himself as the poverty candidate, which was the best he could do.

I agree. I am sure Trippi had something to do with the morph as well. I don't think Edwards is lying, but I don't know how deep this new rhetoric goes.

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[ Parent ]
Context (0.00 / 0)
Yeah. If we could take Edwards' rhetoric out of context, I think a lot more people would be Edwards-maniacs.

But we can't. The context exists, and he's responsible for a good chunk of the context.

So, the Deaniacs took the best option on the table, which is Obama. He's not a perfect option, but he is the best opinion.

[ Parent ]
Trippi Just Came (0.00 / 0)
on board with Edwards a month or so ago so he had nothing to do with Edwards transformation which has been in place for a long time now.
[ Parent ]
Actually Trippi joined in the late spring (0.00 / 0)
But Edwards had already sharpened his rhetoric and seasoned his policies over the last 4 years, long before he announced a run for the presidency.

Transformation is really going to far. He's trended leftwards since he first joined the Senate in 1998, but all the core themes of his first campaign are still there in this one.

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[ Parent ]
It ins't an asbolutely precise analysis (4.00 / 1)
But, suffice to say that, yes, Obama got more of the Dean and Bradley voters.

However, as online polls show, there are a decent number of Dean-Edwards folks.
[ Parent ]
Edwards got zero Dean voters??? (4.00 / 1)
That's hard to believe (if I am reading it right). Their messages are most similar.

Another irony, people seemed ready to believe Dean's more dramatic shift from his centrist Governor record, but not Edwards'?

[ Parent ]
Indeed (0.00 / 0)
Dean was more centrist than Edwards, even in 2004 on a lot of issues.

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[ Parent ]
Dean was a Rorschach candidate (0.00 / 0)
I tend to believe that some sheeple projected their beliefs onto Dean because of the whole war thing.  I supported Dean, but I actually liked and embraced his centrist record.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
More precisely put (0.00 / 0)
Dean was the "emotional" candidate. That's easy to see as his main theme was stirring up people with 'You got the power' and such.

Then look what portion of the vote Obama got. Almost all. His is a fire and brimstone campaign also. All built on emotion.

At least Dean had a record as governor to run on.

It really is pretty scary when such a large swath of the public is willing to elect someone based on emotion.

[ Parent ]
It's pretty normal (0.00 / 0)
I suggest that even most ideologues on both the left and the right often pick their policy positions first by gut instinct then come up with the reasoning to back it up.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
Yes (0.00 / 0)
Which is exactly the opposite from a rational approach.

And it is that kind of behavior that gets so many people in so much trouble in so many areas of their lives.

[ Parent ]
I don't expect it to change much (0.00 / 0)
Expecting people to act otherwise strikes me as expecting people to act contrary to human nature.  It's something for progressives (many of whom are just as emotional) to work around, not try to "fix."

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
Inspiration the key (4.00 / 1)
What set Dean apart for his adherents wasd his ability to inspire and to promise a more participatory kind of politics.  that is what Obama is doing this time around--he is trying to get more people involved in the campaign and in politics generally.  He isn't following the Chris/Kos model of a "netroots" bottom-up candidate; rather he is simply telling people to get involved and that if they do so they and the country and the resulting policies will all be the better for it.  As I've said before, this is the kind of appeal JFK made to my cohort (college classes of '61-65) who responded by joining the Peace Corps, civil rights and anti-war movements in large numbers.

It is tribal in a sense, but I don't think the appeal is to identity politics so much as aspiration politics.  What do you want?  More of the Clinton years or something new that might make things less charged and more pragmatic?  This works for many younger and more engaged voters.  The low-information (or maybe we should say otherwise engaged) voters whom Chris writes about are less susceptible to this because they pay less attention and expect less from politics.  They go for Hillary as the more tried-and-true and the person who probably seems to them as the person who got there by hard work.

The real wild card is African American voters and going into Feb 5, Latino voters.  As Clyburn's reeaction shows and my very small personal sample, I think Obama is starting to be seen as a symbol for Black people and other minority, and I think there may be a delayed reaction for him like the one women had for Hillary.

Janet Napolitano's endorsement is more symptomatic than Kerry's and lamont's, as they are defintitely wine-and-brie types while she is young, smart, pragmatic and female.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
Yes, very good summary (0.00 / 0)
"Aspiration politics" is exactly the right label for the Obama phenomenon. For years I've worked on turnout and seldom had much to offer to folks who wanted someone to vote FOR, rather than to dutifully support as the lesser evil.

"Expect less" voters is a good label for far too many working and poor people who just don't think they'll get much out of any of this. I like that you mention that they are likely to think Clinton is the deserving, working, dues payer among the candidates. (Don't personally think any of them deserve that label, but I can see it.)

Can it happen here?

[ Parent ]
Nevada wasn't competitive in 2004 (4.00 / 3)
By the time Nevada voted in 2004, the primary was completely over. Kerry had already won 13 of 15 contests at that time. You can't extrapolate the voting base from New Hampshire to Nevada -- Kerry was the clear winner by Nevada, and practically everybody, regardless of what group they fell into, was voting for him. (He won 63% of the vote).
As I posted in another thread by accident (4.00 / 2)
The problem with this analysis is that it seems to assume the coalitions in NH represent the coalitions overall, if we are to draw any conclusions going forward.

As Jay Cost notes, not only is this unlikely, but it's directly contradicted by the Iowa vote.  So only looking at NH and trying to extrapolate out to the country writ large seems flawed; it doesn't take into account Hispanics, it doesn't take into account African-Americans, and it doesn't take into account (perhaps most importantly) regional cultural differences.

There's no reason to assume that, say, union and lower-income voters resemble culturally or in their political taste similar demographic voters in the mid-west.  The fact that Obama was raised by Kansan grandparents could have given him a distinctly mid-western appeal that worked in Iowa but didn't translate to NH.  Having lived in NH for 4 years, I can say with some level of confidence that they don't have much love for the mid-west up there.

Cost's take on comparing cross-tabs for the two elections we've had so far:


  The bottom line: Iowa and New Hampshire diverged in the fullest sense of the word. Not only did Iowa vote Obama and New Hampshire vote Clinton - identical demographic groups broke in opposite directions! This implies that the nomination contest is very much up in the air. The big question is who can put together more of the traditional Democratic voting coalition. Obama did in Iowa. Clinton did in New Hampshire.

There's no reason to assume Clinton will continue to dominate the Kerry vote; she didn't in Iowa, and that was without a large influx of African-Americans (part of the traditional "beer track" coalition we've heard so much about)

Well put (0.00 / 0)
The coalitions in each state could be very different. I still think this is interesting, though.
[ Parent ]
Former Dean supporter for Edwards (4.00 / 3)
That's a very odd set of numbers to me.  I was one of the first online contributors to Dean's campaign back in, well, I don't know now, either December '03 or January '04, and stuck with him until the day he dropped out of the primary.  I'm registered in OK, and iirc he wasn't in the running by that point and I had switched to Edwards, partially because I liked his message, and partially out of sheer antipathy toward Kerry, toward whom I never really warmed up even as the offical Dem standard-bearer in '04. 

Anyway I supported Edwards at first as an anti-Kerry candidate (there really wasn't anybody else with a real chance as I recall--and a true fan of Howard Dean had nothing but deep antipathy by that point for John Kerry, who had spent so much of his energy pulling Dean down, and of course there was his reprehensible campaign advisor--Chris Lehane, I want to say, one of the first names of not-quite-famous political operatives that I ever learned) but I quickly grew to appreciate him on his very real merits, most significantly his willingness to discuss income disparity.

During the '04 convention there are a handful of images/events that really stuck with me from what little I was able to watch from overseas via internet:  one was watching Hillary and Chelsea Clinton watching from some point up above sipping champagne, and Chelsea tucking the glasses out of camera sight while barely displaying any awareness that the two of them were suddenly up on the monitors.  I thought it was a pretty slick little maneuver.  I remember seeing Edwards watching Kerry's speech and catching for an instant a gleam of raw intelligence and political savvy and being overwhelmed with the thought, "this guy has the whole thing figured out, and he's gonna be a JFK-like president someday."  To that point, I didn't really have the fire that JRE supporters had had.  But then and there I got it.

Then there was Barack Obama's speech, the speech that electrified the Democratic party all the way through, the one which needs no detail in retelling now.  I thought, "this is another guy to watch."  I was thinking in about 20 years, but hey, before then I'd never even known he existed. 

So I kept an eye on Obama as a senator, waiting for some fire, some signs of a man assuming a position of leadership.  well, a lot of nothing happened there for a while, and I kinda forgot about him.  Then two things happened that really gave me a bad impression of Obama.  One was a remark he made, in relation to precisely what I can't tell you right now, but the language has stuck with me ever since:  when asked why he wasn't taking a bolder stance in regard to something, he said sometimes you have to "trim your sails" if you want to win out in the end, and I just thought, oh man, how lame can you get.  Then, not too long after, he became one of the voices against Howard Dean when he made the famous (and entirely true) observation that America was no safer for having deposed Saddam Hussein. 

That whole time was a very painful period of disillusionment with the Democratic party for me (I was still deep in the learning curve of how things work at that point), and to see this breath of fresh air and hope from the '04 convention, who could only "trim his sails" in the fight against the most despotic and dangerous administration in US history, but who had absolutely no qualm about joining in the Democratic scrum to plant the knife in thier own party chairman's back for daring to speak the truth--well, it was damned-near unforgivable for me.  And it remains unforgettable.

I've never really trusted Obama since then.  And that's why it astonishes me to see him garner support from so many Dean backers from '04.  I've come to believe there's some hope that Obama can lead a coalition of independent voters, centrists and the occasional republican toward a major Democratic realignment in November '08, and so I don't mind supporting him wholeheartedly and enthusiastically when the time comes...but that trust issue is still kinda there for me.

I don't mean to say I'm right or that my instincts in this case are reliable; I only go to this much effort in the retelling because I can't believe I'm the only die-hard Dean supporter who feels this way.  Obama has had quite a few disappointing moments in the spotlight since his remarks against Dean way back when, and very little to counterbalance it, to my (limited) perspective. 

Anyway, just saying.  I still favor Edwards, although I really, really don't want Hillary to win.  Again, a large part of my antipathy toward Hillary is the people she'd likely supplant Howard Dean with in the party apparatus.

The Wages of Sin is about $5.15 an Hour.

Obama won The Dean Support Because He Got The Most Money (0.00 / 0)
If JRE would have gotten more money donated than Obama did, JRE would be getting all the Dean support.  The reason why Obama is getting the money and the dean support is he is seen as having best chance to beat the Clintons.  JRE is staying in to the end to try to get as many delegates as he can to make a difference at the convention.  I say that the deaniacs backed the wrong guy.  I think JRE would be crushing Hillary if he would have had the money and the support that Obama got.
[ Parent ]
I agree completely (4.00 / 1)
Money is (obviously) part of politics, and so you can't say "If only JRE has as much $$ as Obama ..." It is to Obama's credit that he has been able to sell himself to so many. But the point remains in my mind pretty clear: If those big dollar donors had gone to JRE instead of Obama, this nomination would be close to finished by now.
[ Parent ]
So why did Obama get the money and not Edwards? (0.00 / 0)
I think largely because he is a fresh face and fresh approach.  Edwards supporters may say that the moneyed people who support Obama are turned off by Edwards' populism, but I don't think that's it so much as a desire to try something different after the Clinton years and then the unsuccessful Gore and Kerry campaigns.  I think there are different kinds of idealism and different pragmatic calculations made by different kinds of people.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
The "trim your sails" comment was regarding the class action lawsuit reform bill (0.00 / 0)
which went through in like April or May of 2005.  Same time as the bankruptcy bill, which he voted against (many people have these two votes confused).

Thing is, I really thought Dean's famous "we're not any safer" comment was in December of 2003, when Saddam was caught.  And Obama would not have had any published quotes at that time.  Your description of this memory is very specific, so I'm inclined to believe you, but I'm really quite sure that the famous quote was from then.  So, um, maybe you're remembering something different?  Dean got slammed by a lot of people very hard for that, but Obama was not one of them.

[ Parent ]
Candidates vs. followers (4.00 / 2)
Wesley Clark has been campaigning for Clinton, and she only gets 18% of the Clark vote.

And while Dean is officially neutral, Joe Trippi has been with the Edwards campaign, and the overwhelming majority of Dean voters go for Obama.

And now Kerry endorses Obama. 

This data certainly casts doubt on the ability of high-profile endorsements to deliver many votes.

Or it says something about what people are looking for (0.00 / 0)
and not finding in one candidate or another.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
the endorsement (0.00 / 0)
This means that Kerry's endorsement of Obama really could have an impact. It might bring a good chunk of those %73 percent over.
Umm, no (0.00 / 0)
But very nice try. What it means is that the Kerry endorsement is irrelevant. Not that it could be thought of in any other way, for that matter. I can't imagine any Dem voters who give a shit what John Kerry says right now.
[ Parent ]
try imagining a little harder (0.00 / 0)
::raises hand::

I care what Kerry says; for the most part I admire and respect the guy. And I'm one of those undecided Democrats (there are things I like about each of the candidates), so for me it's a nice plus for Obama, maybe even one of the more attractive things about his candidacy thusfar. In a nation of over 70 million Democrats (according to wiki), I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

[ Parent ]
WHOA -- you can't extrapolate from New Hampshire (4.00 / 1)
Even if every conclusion that Chris draws about this data is true, you just cannot extrapolate from New Hampshire data to national data!!!

This entire thread is like saying "it was like this in New Hampshire, so it is the same nationally".

Please let's not delude ourselves, and only use this analysis for its intellectual stimulation value!

missing the forrest for the trees (4.00 / 1)
This analysis makes more sense than poblano's laughable NH projection model, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. Once again poblano is over-analyzing very limited data and missing the deeper dynamic, this model is overfitted to 2004 data. Obviously the Clinton campaign has focused on Kerry supporters, and everyone has commented on the Dean/Kerry, Bradley/Gore, ad infinitum parallel. But a candidate centered analysis leads to personality based conclusions, and to the theory that a Kerry endorsement will move these voters. A town by town demographic analysis, informed by comparison to prior elections, shows the creative coalition versus Democratic base dynamic you suggest. I think your take, that Clinton's message is appealing to the Kerry coalition and that her campaign's focus expanding the women's vote makes for a formidable Democratic coalition, is the clearer view of the state of the race. That dynamic also undermines the divisiveness of the age, race and gender cards (which the media is disturbingly eager to stoke), her appeal is more economic than gender, and Obama's is more reformist than race.
1984 - Mondale, Hart, Jackson coalitions (0.00 / 0)
Obama is trying to fuse the Hart and Jackson voters. Here are some numbers.

http://acepilots.com...

Obama needs some love from blue collar dems (4.00 / 1)
And its not going to be easy.
From what I see (0.00 / 0)
Obama is reaching Latino voters here in Northern CA.  I have no idea whether Antonio Villaraigosa's endorsement of Clinton helps her in Southern CA, but I would expect so.

BTW, this morning's SF Chronicle refered to a private Dem poll that has McCain leading, with Huckabee and even Romney all ahead of Giuliani in CA.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
I guess I meant white blue collar dems (0.00 / 0)
they put Hillary over the top in NH. Clinton race-baiting is directed at white blue collar dem.
[ Parent ]
Lots of minorities in the Feb 5 states (0.00 / 0)
Also SC, NV and FL.  We will soon have post- IA/NH polls coming in from CA and NY and other places.  Should be revealing.  Still no advertising on TV here in CA.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
Probably also too grand a conclusion (0.00 / 0)
to be drawn from an incredibly close defeat, but it is an interesting point.  It also doesn't reflect Obama's primary problems, that he lost NH by losing women, even young women who were one of his bases in Iowa, and it's not clear how women map out onto the Kerry/Dean dichotomy.

By the way, NYTimes' David Brooks (of all people) used this argument on the Lehrer NewsHour (online via podcast) on Wednesday.  Brooks made the argument that Obama has educated, higher-income folks sewn up, but that in the coming primary states and Feb 5th states, he'll now have African-Americans to counter-balance his weakness among lower-income folks, giving him that boost that he had to do without in Iowa and NH.  Brooks must read Open Left.  Heh.

I still don't understand exactly why Obama and Edwards have so much trouble cracking lower-income demographics.  Is it just that layer of being more difficult to penetrate with policy?  And of course, most people don't seem to vote based on policy.  It's clearly not just name recognition, not in NH and Iowa at least.  So is it just loyalty to the political leaders who have been there before? 

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A combination of things (0.00 / 0)
I think that's part of it, I also think the more activist and educated voters expect more from politics in several respects and Obama's aspirational politics appeals to them.  I do think that Obama has appeal to Latinos as well as Blacks who may have previously felt that he couldn't win.  Remember that most Latino voters are foreign born with less party loyalty because less time here.  Many in CA started to become citizens after the GOP went after them in the 1994 gubernatorial election, and that trend has accelerated in this century.  Ironically, fear of deportation probably propels more legal immigrants to settle permanently here while they might otherwise have kept up their home country citizenship and gone back and forth more.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
people vote on policy (0.00 / 0)
Obama is not talking about the issues that concern lower-income demographics, he is making an abstract argument about politics. Edwards is talking about their issues but he is off-key, low-income people don't call themselves poor, and they aren't as populist as one might expect. Clinton talks about their issues in great detail, and they think she can deliver.
[ Parent ]
The Clinton, Obama and Edwards Coalitions | 39 comments
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