I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that Obama kicked ass in the Potomac Primaries yesterday: we’re talking about a frickin’ 50% lead in DC. When was the last time you saw a 50% lead? If you’ll forgive me a little apples and oranges comparison here, two hundred years ago, James Madison beat Charles Pinckney in the 1808 presidential race by 44% of the electoral votes. How many of you have heard of Charles C. Pinckney? (Jana, you and all the other 19th century U.S. historians can put your hands down.) Coincidentally, the next candidate Madison pushed into obscurity was De Witt Clinton.
Yesterday, Obama ate into all of Hillary Clinton’s core demographics: seniors, latinos, working class whites, and women in general. According to CNN, she beat her rival only among white women. That’s got to scare her more than an Iowa caucus. I want to say that her only hope is in Ohio and Texas, but the media focus on “the big states” downplays Obama’s victories in the smaller ones. The 238 delegates in the DC region that the Democratic candidates fought over yesterday outnumber the 228 up for grabs the gigante state of Texas. And we know that Clinton is not going to pull off the Obama’s victory margins, which are key in the Democratic Party’s proportional distribution of delegates.
The pundits are bandying about an Ohio poll that shows a 17-pt lead for Clinton, but that was taken before yesterday and therefore misses any post-Potomac momentum and discounts the Obama’s strength when he’s had a chance to focus his attention on single states. He can lose the big states, as long as he keeps the margins narrow and therefore the doling out of delegates pretty even. He’ll make up the difference with huge margins in the smaller states. Remember that he’s won over twice as many states as his opponent.
Barring any sudden developments, I’m fairly confident that Obama will win the popular vote and grab the most pledged delegates through the rest of the state-by-state contests. My biggest concerns right now? Puerto Rico and/or the possibility of a brokered nomination. Until yesterday, Clinton has had solid support among Latinos, and at least one major newspaper has reported that all of its 63 delegates are awarded to the winner of the popular vote (but this party document [pdf link] says the delegates are allocated proportionally). Here’s hoping that Obama can put eliminate these concerns by turning his slim margin into a decisive lead over the next month.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Deborah // Feb 13, 2008 at 9:53 am
That’s an awfully nice picture, John . . .
2 John // Feb 13, 2008 at 9:56 am
Heh. Obama is easy on the eyes. I had that in my saved pics stash, but couldn’t remember where it came from. Were you the source?
3 C. L. Hanson // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:48 am
Actually, I’ve heard of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. My brother once named a starship after him. Speaking of John H., it looks like his prediction is coming true!!!
4 Jonathan Blake // Feb 13, 2008 at 10:58 am
When was the last time you saw a 50% lead?
Aside from Romney’s 90% in Utah?
5 xJane // Feb 13, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“My brother once named a starship after him.” I think that needs some explanation…
6 Mr. Jenkins // Feb 14, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Obama looks sharp, and speaks with an inspiration, hope and optimisim that is badly needed both here in the USA and around the world. Too bad he’s a Marxist.
7 xJane // Feb 15, 2008 at 7:43 am
Mr. Jenkins: do go on! Personally I find the whole field of Democratic candidates to be just barely to the left of Bush. And much too right-wing for me.
8 John // Feb 15, 2008 at 8:37 am
I’m with xJane. Obama is fairly centrist. He’s suggesting tax cuts for the middle class, and his health care plan looks nothing like, say, the Japanese system of socialized medicine.
xJane, in some ways, these candidates may even be right of Bush–not in rhetoric, obviously–he has presided over the largest expansion of the Federal government since LBJ and Nixon.
9 Mr. Jenkins // Feb 15, 2008 at 1:53 pm
From the National Journal ( http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/ ):
“Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.”
10 John // Feb 15, 2008 at 3:32 pm
That’s a fascinating study, MJ. It makes me feel even better about Obama.
I know that you can only go so deep in blog comments, but “communist” and “very liberal” are still not quite the same. A left-leaning Democrat in the U.S. has more in common with a right-leaning Republican than they would with an actual Communist part member (our government doesn’t come close to capturing the range of views expressed in most European parliaments).
Even the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are problematic (and this was stated by the National Journal editors). Strong defense is associated with ‘conservatism’ and the Republicans today, but certainly wasn’t in the 40s and 50s. And as ‘conservative’ as Bush is considered by Americans, his encouragement of gov’t growth, increased subsidies to business, and insertion of government into religious/moral concerns all clash with the classic definition of small government, minimal intrusion, conservative.
11 xJane // Feb 16, 2008 at 8:30 am
I’d be interested in how they formed their “composite liberal score”. I’d actually be really interested in how I’d score on a similar scale. John: I’ve often wondered that about the current Republican administration. They may be socially conservative, but they don’t seem to be economically, or environmentally conservative…
12 xJane // Feb 16, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I just ran across an interesting assessment of what political candidates you intellectually like vs. which ones you emotionally like. I like Obama intellectually but Clinton emotionally. Check it out.
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