wait (0.00 / 0)

You said: "Further, the Obama margins will be close enough that the Clinton camp will claim they lead in the popular vote, even though that just isn't true."

But what about the Foucault popular vote count?

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by: tremayne @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 10:59:06 AM CDT

The InsiderAdvantage poll is a joke (4.00 / 2)

They predicted only 25% African American turnout, and that only 64% of African Americans would vote for Obama. They had undecideds at 14%, which I suspect is far too high. They also had a really small sample (571) which makes the numbers in the subgroups suspects, in my opinion, even though they claim an MoE of 3.8% on the whole.  Here are some reasonable assumptions for North Carolina:

Obama wins 90% of African American voters at 33% of turnout, 30% of white voters at 60% turnout, and 50% of other votes of 7%. That nets him 51.2% of the total vote, and I think 30% of white voters is on the conservative aside.  If all the other numbers remain equal and Obama gets 35% of the white vote, his overall vote total goes to 54.2%.  If he gets 40% of the white vote, his overall vote total goes to 57.2%.  Basically, add 3% to his total vote percentage for every 5% he goes up with white voters, assuming I'm right on African American votes at 90% of 33% and other votes at 50% of 7% (which is pretty much in line with most polls, I think).  With a baseline figure north of 50%, I think at worst he'll outweigh Clinton's gains in Indiana (which may be minimal - Anne Selzer, who nailed Iowa dead on for the Des Moines Register the day before, had Obama up by 1).

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by: expatriatedjerseyan @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 10:59:35 AM CDT

Any ol' sweep would do? (4.00 / 2)

I would prefer a sweep by one candidate or the other on May 6th, which would serve as a pretty severe blow no matter who landed it.

Well that's weird. Why would a Clinton sweep be preferable to a split? A Clinton sweep - as you go on to note - would lead to an absolute clusterfuck situation, where Obama has the delegate lead but Clinton has all the momentum. Whereas a split would keep us at status quo, with Obama having the overwhelming lead and, in my opinion, there would be no chance of the nomination dragging on to the convention. So, really? You'd prefer a Clinton sweep to a split?

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by: Chachy @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:06:42 AM CDT

agreed (4.00 / 1)

For Obama supporters, close races are not the most annoying result.  A still-leading-in-delegates-but-wounded-by-big-losses Obama is much more annoying.

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by: tremayne @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:17:17 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Because (4.00 / 1)

I guess mythinking is that if Obama is going to lose, then let's get it over with and lose. If Obama is going to win, then let's get it over with and win. Either way, let's get it over with.

It is mainly a sentiment borne out of frustration and being tired, rather than a rational assesment of the campaign.  

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by: Chris Bowers @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:20:46 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Except if he loses NC... (0.00 / 0)

Then that doesn't "get it over with"... It essentially guarantees a convention fight, as he'll still likely hold the delegate lead, but Clinton will have narrowed it and he will have lost momentum.

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by: leshrac55 @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:43:03 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

If Hillary pulls an upset in North Carolina (4.00 / 3)

Then, for the first time, I will believe that the Democrats are going to lose in November; for in that case, I believe we really will have a spectacle of a convention, which will still probably result in Obama being the candidate, but an extremely weak and hobbled one.

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by: ThomasPaine @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:08:42 AM CDT

Obama wins NC big like he did the rest of the South (4.00 / 3)

Demographics has been destiny in this campaign. Pennsylvania went almost exactly as one would have expected based on its similar demographics to Ohio. So will North Carolina. I will be shocked if Obama doesn't win it by 15 or more. Indiana looks like the closest thing we've had to a toss up in a long time. I won't be surprised if Clinton wins narrowly. The pledged delegate race is long since over, so there's really no reason for her to drop out or stay in based on Tuesday's results regardless of which way it goes. Wouldn't the most annoying result be Obama wins Indiana and Clinton wins North Carolina?  

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by: redwards95 @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:09:47 AM CDT

This is a real split, not a manufactured one (4.00 / 1)

Clinton and Obama appeal to different segments, indeed halves, of the Democratic electorate. The two halves don't interact in real life very much. They don't live in the same places and don't have the same worries or concerns. As a result, supporters of one candidate can't abide by the other, not because they necessarily dislike the other, but because they just don't see the appeal. At all. So both are going to be able to fundraise, and depending on each state's demographics, get their votes, all the way to the end.

But in the end, someone is going to have more delegates (almost certainly Obama, in my opinion sadly). And that will be that.

I don't know if it's annoying, but it is dangerous to what is increasingly looking like a dominant coalition of good guys. We cannot let it split. When Obama finally seals the deal, he (and importantly, his supporters) HAVE to reach out to Hillary's people. Trust me, it will not be easy.

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by: ColoDem @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:20:20 AM CDT

Sad, but true... (4.00 / 1)

As someone who comes from the other wing of the party...the one who thinks both candidates are too centrist...I don't see why people are so entrenched with these two.  Their policies are almost generically weak and both offer change that they make sound transcendental but looks to me no better than incremental. I have little hope that either can turn our country around or usher in a new generation of progressive policy.  

Once it became apparent that Obama was going to win on the democratic merits (not the unmerited totals from MI and FL) I have sided with him against the Clinton onslaught, but the reality is I have little real enthusiasm for his candidacy beyond the identity element of being the first black president.  Clinton excites me even less, not because I value the idea of the first female president less than the first black president, but because she doesn't seem to deserve it from my decidedly anti-aristocracy POV.

My only hope is that people are only entrenched as deeply as the superficiality of identity politics dictate and they will coalesce around an anyone but McCain candidate, since in the end that is what I will be voting for again...a referendum against GOP politics and politicians.

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by: Ricky @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 12:49:15 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

You Exaggerate! (0.00 / 0)

Prologue: Obama and his supporters have been reaching out to the electoral groups that have broken most strongly for Hillary in the primaries.  The only voters among "Hillary's people" that it will be hard to reach out to are the partisans that Hillary's personal attacks on Obama have inspired to add their own, often more florid and abusive, attacks on Obama.  That's not a huge segment of the Democratic vote, although this cadre has certainly spewed enough sewage in cyberspace.  (Admitted, some of Obama's supporters have ridiculed Hillary and Hillary supporters, but rarely with the venom shown by Hillary's partisans.)

    *     *     *     *      *     *     *     *     *

The supporters of Obama are NOT socially isolated from the supporters of Hillary.  The 30-40% of high-school or less white Democrats that support Obama consistently certainly do interact a great deal in real life with the high-school or less educated whites who vote for Clinton.  The 30% of white Catholics who support Obama in the primaries certainly do interact with the 70% of white Catholics who support Clinton.

This "different electoral coalitions" garbage is precisely that - GARBAGE!!  Each candidate is stronger in certain demographic groups, but the only overwhelming difference in the candidates' respective support is among African-American voters.  And the Clintons have driven away a substantial number of African-American voters who would have continued to vote for Hillary if Bill had not started playing the race card in South Carolina and continued playing it up to today!

There are roughly two halves of the Democratic electorate, but these two halves are not accurately described by neat demographic categories.  The talk of "the white Catholic vote" and the "rural white vote" (both two to one for Hillary) is a device for commentators like Tweety (Chris Matthews) and consultants like Mark Penn, who reify the demographic categories as "voting blocs."  I'm afraid, ColoDem, that when you wrote that the two halves of the Democratic electorate are completely isolated from each other, you were drinking the kool-aid handed out by folks like Matthews and Penn.

There is no doubt that Obama and his consulting team know that they need Hillary's voters in the general election, and they will reach out to those voters as vigorously as possible - after they rest up some from Hillary's pounding.  Some groups will not take a whole lot of persuasion. Senior white voters (65+) who have been supporting Hillary over Obama will certainly support any Democrat over John McCain, who has talked of reviving Bush's plan to privatize Social Security accounts.  (Right now with the threat of a global collapse in the credit markets that sustain financial investments, privatization can be seen as the worst policy proposal ever made for a program of social insurance for retirement income.)  

Those Catholics and evangelicals who really care about church attendance and a spiritual grounding can also relate more readily to Obama -- who attends church with his family -- than to McCain, who I believe rarely if ever graces the pews of any Episcopal worship service.

But Hillary's partisans who have committed themselves to vitriolic personal attacks on Obama or who have ridiculed his competence to fill the job of President are going to have a hard time swallowing their pride.  Eventually they will vote for Obama, but only the ones who were as cynical as Hillary in their attacks will be able to work for Obama's election.  Even Hillary cannot be very persuasive.  What's she going to say?  "I lied and exaggerated and Obama certainly is a great champion of the common man, one who is well prepared to take on and learn quickly how to be an effective President." ??

And an important segment of Hillary's voting support has come in significant part from whites who have voted against Obama because of his race, and who will have a difficult time supporting him in the general election.  In Pennsylvania, about 3.5% of the total voters who turned out voted for Clinton but told exit pollsters that they would not support Clinton in the general election.  Most of these are whites who are so strongly racialist (the issue's too complex to call them racists) in their view of government that they will not help put any African American into a position of authority over them. The ones who weren't planning to vote for Hillary anyway are certainly not going to vote for Obama because Hillary asks them to. (From my own experience with elections I doubt that very many of these voters were wholly oblivious to race and were solely responding to Rush Limbaugh's call for "Operation Chaos" to try to prolong the Democratic primary fight.

And the team of Hillary & Bill have given a lot of other high-school-or-less white voters lots of excuses not to vote for Obama. There is no way Hillary can take back those excuses. The Obama campaign will simply have to persuade as many of those voters as possible to remember that John McCain has already committed himself to being George W. Bush III in the White House, and no Democrat in his or her right mind would consider voting in favor of another term of Bush policies.

After Obama swept the February delegate selection events that took place after Super Tuesday, Hillary followed the advice of Mark Penn and other advisers that she had to go negative against Obama or her candidacy was doomed.  By going negative she has wounded Obama, but she inflicted even deeper wounds on her own candidacy -- often her favorability has declined more than Obama's, and now 60% of voters consider Hillary NOT Honest!  What a huge vulnerability for her to carry into the general election campaign.

If Hillary truly and enthusiastically endorses Obama's candidacy, there is little chance that the voting coalition will split in the general election.  Let's hope that she doesn't let Bill utter a word about her endorsement of Obama -- he'd only muck it up!

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by: hardheaded liberal @ Sun May 04, 2008 at 23:52:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yep...annoying. (0.00 / 0)

I agree with you here Chris.  I think Obama's floor in NC (assuming white voters vote like PA and not like OH) is maybe winning by a 7.5% margin.  According to Poblano's projection, Clinton will win Indiana by 2%, though the delegate race will be tied.  

I think the problem now is Obama can't really get a break.  The media has turned on him, and the remaining contests happen too quickly for the zeitgeist to change to a positive tone.  Each under-performance will cause another news cycle to remark on Obama's weakness.  It will not, however, be a Carter-style implosion, as his base will remain intact.  He'll still win NC, OR, MT, and probably SD, but the narrative will be Obama limping to the finish line, instead of Clinton and Obama slugging it out till the end.  

And so, we'll have a nominee by June.  And chances are quite great that it will be Obama - but a wounded, diminished Obama.   Sucks, but I guess it's better than a brokered convention.  

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by: telephasic @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 12:39:46 PM CDT

This is the first time that Clinton (4.00 / 1)

has built momentum BEFORE the weekend.  

There is a mountain of evidence here that we are witnessing the most signififcant break in this race since the final days before Ohio.  In fact, with Clinton gaining about 10 points in multiple polls, one can argue this is the biggest development since South Carolina.

I am extremely concerned about Obama's chances.  

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by: fladem @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 12:56:35 PM CDT

can I add this comment to Wikipedia (0.00 / 0)

on the "concern troll" page?

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by: BobbyWallace @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 13:58:32 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not sure how you mean that (4.00 / 1)

But Fladem is NOT a concern troll, based on his output here.  There has been a clear shift in polling - it may recover, but it is there.

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by: JC @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 14:05:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

My mistake (4.00 / 1)

I confused fladem with someone else.  I went back and read some of his other comments/posts and he clearly isn't who I was thinking of.  My apologies.  

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by: BobbyWallace @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 14:14:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

who did you think I was? (0.00 / 0)

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by: fladem @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 15:38:19 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

You are right - 10 percent shift, despite supposed demographic "lock-in" (4.00 / 1)

I wonder who that 10% is?  Is it 10% of AA's, upset that he has completely denounced Wright?  The big shift has come after Obama has denounced.  Or is it too early for that?

Is it, the optics shift of Obama?  From that great speech on race - "I can no more denounce Wright than my own family" to "I denounce Wright".

Man, the Wright we saw on the weekend, really seems to have hit Obama hard.

It really does seem to put a gap between Obama's biography and story (Audacity of Hope) and the Wright that has actually been revealed, who had a major part of that story.

I can only imagine, how much more damage Wright can continue to do, if he decides to.

Why would he do his part, to help destroy Obama's chances this way?

We'll see what happens, I suppose. Again, how can the party still not support Obama, given his pledged delegate lead?

But he looks like he is backing into the nomination for sure.

I again say, this whole focus focus focus on Wright - it's horrible, really:

a. Has almost no meaning to what the country cares about, what is a priority for the american people.
b. Is completely overblown, like a Britney Spears scandal.
c. Even the insane focus on trivia, and "character issues", is applied completely unfairly, to democrats and republicans.

But it seems to be working - not with me, but with the networks and a big enough slice of the electorate.

This system is broken, broken, broken, broken.  From Dukakis and the tank, to Clinton and bimbo eruptions, to Gore's heavy sighs and earth tone colors, to Kerry's Swift Boating, to now, Obama's "paster problem (WTF???).

What can be done about it?  It's not going to stop until it isn't successful anymore.  

But it's been successful for 20 years now - if not longer.

Any thought, ideas?

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by: JC @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 14:03:49 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I think its taken him off (0.00 / 0)

his theme: change.  The Wright thing suggests he doesn't have a sense of hot  to get to a post-racial America.  It also raises basic questions about his competence (he broke with him after he stood by him).

I would be very curious to see what the numbers look like among those who think the ability to deliver change is the most important thing they are look for in a candidate.

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by: fladem @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 15:37:51 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

The Length of this Campaign (0.00 / 0)

is taking its toll.  Actually, I think Obama is holding up fairly well against the tag-team pair of Hillary and McCain (with Bill as the manager hitting him whenever the referee's back is turned), but it is starting to get frustrating.  At this point, I don't see how Hillary can make a claim to the nomination if Obama wins NC.  If he wins NC and Indiana is within a 5 point range and he is denied the nomination, I would be hardpressed, as a lifelong Democrat who has never voted for any Republican on any level ever (and as someone who walked precincts for Lyndon Johnson and George McGovern and John Kerry among others) not to leave the party.  I would never vote Republican, but I would consider opting out entirely or switching my registration to Green, because why would I want to continue to support a party that takes the nomination away from the leader in pledged delegates and dismisses its most loyal voting bloc and disses young voters?  I wouldn't and I won't.

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by: historyrocks @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 13:15:58 PM CDT

Situation now different with Obama facing a perfect storm (4.00 / 1)

The results have up to now mostly been predictable but Obama is now facing more attacks from more directions than ever before with the Reverend Wright doing everything he possibly can do to destroy Obama's candidacy.  In a matter of days Wright has done everything possible to try to prevent Obama from winning.  This is both one of the most bizarre and also disgraceful episodes in American political history.

 So it's Clinton, McCain, the Media and Wright firing on Obama from all directions.  If he is still standing Wednesday morning he will have withstood an extraordinary assault.

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by: Historian @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 14:29:57 PM CDT

Historian? (0.00 / 0)

I doubt this gets high on the disgraceful list compared to the entire Grant administration, Tammany Hall, Watergate, and a couple of dozen other things historians know all about.

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by: jbj @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 15:55:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Wright is Obama's version of Hillary's Bill Clinton problem: (4.00 / 1)

the colorfull character who can't shut up.

And like Bill Clinton, Wright is obviously motivated by anger at having his lifeswork trashed - just as Bill has lashed out having been wounded by Obama's attacks on his legacy.

They are two oversized egos, justified in fighting for their earned legacies in our history, but each unintentionally wounds the candidate they are behind.

John McCain vetoes every Environmental Bill already.

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by: dotcommodity @ Thu May 01, 2008 at 16:49:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]