A Boost for Obama in Montana

by: David Sirota

Tue Sep 09, 2008 at 09:28


This is good news for Barack Obama:

"U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, runner-up in Montana's Republican presidential caucus last winter, will appear on Montana's November ballot as the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party of Montana, it announced Monday. David Hart of Kalispell, who ran Paul's campaign in Montana, predicted that Paul's candidacy would hurt the other four candidates on the state's presidential ballot, particularly McCain. 'Here in Montana, I think it's pretty much sealed the deal that McCain will not win Montana,' Hart said. 'If he doesn't win, Ron Paul will probably be blamed for it. They only need to look in the mirror and blame themselves for nominating someone who doesn't represent true Republican values and causes like Paul.'"

Bill Clinton won Montana in 1992 because of Ross Perot. Obama, who is already close in the polls in Montana, could very likely win the state because of Paul.

David Sirota :: A Boost for Obama in Montana

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A Boost for Obama in Montana | 20 comments
Good find, David! (0.00 / 0)
Thx for the news. Sure will make a difference in the Montana race. Next polls will be interesting.
We Haven't Had a Poll in MT Since 7/29! (0.00 / 0)
That poll (Rasmussen) showed a 47-47 tie.

FiveThirtyEight.com projection is for a 2.3% McCain win in MT, so Ron Paul would have to take around 2 1/2% of Republican votes away from McCain for Obama to have a shot at Montana. That's possible, but not likely.

Republicans have decided to support McCain in the desperate hope of stopping Obama from becoming President. No reason to think that Ron Paul will have any significant impact.

I'd like to think so, but I don't believe it.

We'll know if the pollsters start polling MT and include Ron Paul in the sample.

Whatever evangelical vote there is in Montana is now ramped up because of Palin. But, McCain himself doesn't do particularly well there, or he'd be up by a lot more in a state Bush won handily.

[ Parent ]
And a tie in Rass48-48. Yes! (4.00 / 1)

wasn't there supposed to be some big (0.00 / 0)
Ron Paul announcement sometime soon?  Could it be that he's running as the constitution party candidate?

Also, we should note that Paul got 22% of the Republican primary vote after McCain secured the nomination.

yes (4.00 / 1)
There are some Republicans who also dislike expensive illegal wars. But with no Paul on the ticket, how do we know that half of them at least wouldn't vote for Obama? If so, better to have no Paul on the ticket.

The Paul = Perot thing is questionable. In Montana, now Obama and Paul will be splitting the antiwar vote.

[ Parent ]
is there any polling on whether Ron Paul (0.00 / 0)
supporters are more likely to vote for Obama or McCain?  It seems hard to imagine that having Paul on the ballot would hurt Obama.  I don't know whether it will help him that much, but surely Paul will pull more McCain voters than Obama voters.
[ Parent ]
why is it hard to imagine? (0.00 / 0)
People in Montana, from what I've hard (never been there), tend to be, um, pretty individualist to understate it.  So the folks taht would have have been alienated from McCain might move to Paul instead of Obama.  I don't think it's just restricted to the war, but political worldview as a whole.

But I agree an exact split would be more helpful.  I think it actually needs some journalism or ethnography,  not a poll - it would be too hard to identify the targeted population and the sample size might be so small that it makes more sense to get a qualitative sense (which would also add thickness to the description).

[ Parent ]
Nate at 538 thinks he'll draw from both (0.00 / 0)
Nate says:

"My guess? He gets 5-6 percent of the vote, taking 2-3 percent from McCain, 1-2 percent from Obama, and 2-3 percent from other/nobody."

[ Parent ]
Fear and Loathing in Missoula (4.00 / 4)
I am a salesman.  I haven't made a commission check in 2 months.  I am by nature and profession ultra positive.  But Obama and Biden need to stomp these assholes into the dust.  I cannot abide 4 more years.  I can't.  I am afraid for the first time since I was in the service.  
This is good news, especially (4.00 / 1)
when you consider that pollster.com already has the state leaning toward Obama with a spread of 3.1 points (48.3 for Obama vs. 45.2 for McCain).  This is 3 EV's in our column!
Open the Debates? (4.00 / 2)
Given that Barr is polling around 4% nationally why not open the debates to Barr and Nader-who's polling between 1 and 2%?

It would seem to be to Obama's advantage to do so.

That it would also be the right thing to do is, of course, entirely irrelevant.

Any objections?

It always would have been. (0.00 / 0)
I still think Bush might never have stolen into the White House if the Dems hadn't stupidly shut the third party candidates out of the debates. Whenever somebody breaks the sentimental slop talk and forces discussion of actual real-world issues, Dems win.
[ Parent ]
Montana for Obama (4.00 / 8)
The Obama campaign has 18 field offices in the state, anywhere from the major cities to tiny towns like Wolf Point and Browning, targeting the major Indian Reservations. There are 50 paid staferes and an thousands of volunteers. Barack has been here five times this year, and Joe Biden just did a swing through western Montana last weekend, attracting 1,200 people in Kalispell, a repub stronghold.

Number of offices John Kerry had in Montana last year at this time? Zero. Number of times Kerry or Edwards visited Montana in 2004? Zero. Number of McCain offices in the state? One. Number of times Mcain or Palin have visited in the last year? Zero.

If we can't win the state this year for Obama we will never be able to for a dem.

What's the voter reg situation? (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
Don't know precisely (4.00 / 1)
But Obama volunteers have been pushing registration (including on Indian Reservations) since March before the MT Democratic primary. Montana has a registered voter turnout in presidential years that is one of the highest in the country, sometimes approaching 70-75% of registered voters. Our absentee/vote by mail system has really helped as well.

Get out the vote will be especially critical this year. The huge turnout in Missoula County (and a couple of other counties) in 2006 is credited with winning Jon Tester a senate seat by the narrow margin of 2,700 votes over Conrad Burns.  

[ Parent ]
I heard that they think Palin will bring Montana home (4.00 / 1)
because it is so far north? close to Alaska? cold?

thanks for the good news!

[ Parent ]
Palin (0.00 / 0)
May help out a little, but so far the only thing the repubs are doing is having the executive director of the Montana Repub Party  respond to every news article with "doesn't matter what Obama will do in Montana, he will take your guns". The gun stuff I think is wearing thin, especially since the local repubs are very smug and arrogant this year and are taking Montana voters for granted. Big mistake.
[ Parent ]
an old argument.... (0.00 / 0)
The spoiler effect is an argument as old as winner-take-all voting.

If more than two candidates for a single-seat election is such a "problem" then the solution is Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

Perhaps we also need to hold to the mindset that is the *voters* that own their votes, not political parties.....

3rd Parties redux (0.00 / 0)
I'm very dubious of hopeful talk r.e. Third Party candidates. Sure, if it's a razor-thin margin like in FL in '00 but the comparisons with '92 are a reach b/c Perot was a fairly solid 3rd party candidate.

BTW, I saw this on the blog of Craig's List founder, Craig Newmark, yesterday and thought it was a great concept and worth sharing:

"Hey, this is a good example of genuine grassroots democracy:

ObamaTravel.org is a platform that connects volunteers who want to travel to a swing state with financial sponsors and swing state host families. It's sort of a political hybrid of craigslist and Team-in-Training - volunteers post profiles and solicit sponsorship from their family and friends. Sponsors can see their donations in action by following the activities of their volunteers.

... and let's remember that "community organizing" is pure grassroots democracy."  

if you're Obama and you're pinning your hopes on the "spoiler" theory (0.00 / 0)
to win a state, then your campaign is in much worse trouble than anyone thought.

Try speaking truth to power, reaching out to citizens, and mounting a more vibrant campaign?

[ Parent ]
A Boost for Obama in Montana | 20 comments
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