The one thing I learned about polls while working the campaign last year was counterintuitive: namely, that you don’t want to be the front runner for too long, or too close to the election.
So, while both candidates have polls this morning showing them in the lead, that’s not necessarily good news.
Right now, if I’m running Clinton’s campaign, I want Obama with a 3-4 point lead. People like underdogs and if it looks too easy, they start to turn on the front runner. With three weeks out until the PA election, you don’t really want to be out in front. (We’ll see if I’m right.)
Meanwhile, in other news, Howard Dean reminds Democrats that super delegates are free agents.
THANK YOU, Howard.
Granted, this is my particular bugaboo, but I’m really tired of people who use the “rules are rules” argument when they have no idea what the rules actually say and no inclination to find out.
Right now, if I’m running Clinton’s campaign, I want Obama with a 3-4 point lead.
doesn’t that logic make more sense in a winner-take-all system than a proportionate representation one like we have in the primary contest? i mean, i don’t think clinton has much chance of winning the nomination, but the one scenario where she does is where she wins the overall popular vote. but in order to close the lead that obama already has, she needs to win big, like by more than ten points, in every single remaining primary contest.
so if clinton is behind 3-4 points behind in the polls the day before the PA primary and then gets some underdog votes and ends up narrowly beating obama in the state, really she’s lost overall. she’ll split the delegates and split the popular vote in a way that only gives her a slight edge, thus guaranteeing that she stays behind in both overall counts. and because there really aren’t any big states left, it will, once again underline the fact that the gap between her and obama is in all likelihood insurmountable.
the media keeps portraying this race as if it is a winner-take all race, and that’s the kind of race that your post seems to be assuming as well. but it’s not. it’s a race for delegates. at this point clinton can’t win with pledged delegates and all the superdelegates who had strong feelings in her favor already committed to her. which leave mostly the supers who might be inclined to follow the popular vote. but unless clinton wins big, really really big, in PA, she can’t win the popular vote either. and that holds true even if the FL vote is counted.
the real story of this campaign is how the clinton campaign expected the nomination to be handed to her and was totally unprepared for what happened between iowa and super-tuesday. obama’s blowout 11-state consecutive win in february gave his such a commanding lead that by the time clinton regained her footing in early march, it really was too late to recover. at least that’s how i see it.
What Howard DOESN’T say is that ALL delegates are free agents. That fact is kept secret from the public.
Susie and zuzu: Look, I’ve argued all along that the rules being what they are it is not illegal for superdelegates to vote any way they want. Is it ethical? Forget for a minute that it could produce an outcome you desire. Do you want these two candidates to slug it out for a year, go head-to-head in a wide variety of caucuses and primaries, go to the convention with one clearly preferred by a firm majority of both voters and pledged delegates only to have a small number of party insiders overturn all that to award the nomination to the other candidate?
How will that play in the African-American community? Thanks for playing but we, the all-knowing all-seeing party insiders have decided the Negro doesn’t deserve a chance just yet. That will do wonders for the most reliable voting bloc either party has ever seen.
Yes, technically there is no reason the superdelegates can’t vote for Sen. Clinton. Does that mean it would be a good idea for them to overturn the primaries/caucuses and toss aside the will of the electorate?
That is as anti-democratic an outcome as you could conceive of. The superdelegates need to be done away with - as does the minimum number cut off. Whoever gets the most votes or delegates (on that I don’t really give a damn)should get the nomination. I don’t need some corrupt old ward healers deciding when my vote should count and when it shouldn’t.
Actually, Bob, WOMEN are the party’s most reliable voting bloc.
Super delegates are supposed to vote for the person they think can win. That’s what I want them to do, because I have no idea whether Clinton would do better against McCain than Obama. Those politicians know better than any of us, and I’m a lot more interested in winning than in supporting either candidate. My guess is, Clinton would do better - but I’d rather hear what the super delegates think.
Snuzy, I’m not talking about on election day. I’m talking about now. Polls turn like the tide, in and out. The person who’s not doing as well right now will typically have more momentum on election day.
Susie: In the last 4 presidential elections the average percentage of the African-American vote going to the Democratic Party is 98. Women beat that?
I really want to win, but I don’t want to win through anti-democratic methods. I want democracy more than I want my person to win. Give me the vote and if I lose, there’s always the next election. Take away my vote and I’ve already lost, regardless of whom ends up in charge.
But, if the best idea is to let the all-knowing party insiders decide - fine - let them. But please do away with the pretense (primaries and caucuses) of democracy. Go back to the days when candidates were picked in smoke-filled back rooms. At least that was honest - no one pretended to care what the rank and file thought.
According to research done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner on the 2006 elections, the gap between Democrats and Republicans amongst unmarried women is 36 points, a massive difference. At just over a quarter of the eligible voting age population, unmarried women are the single largest Democratic-leaning voting bloc, bigger than African-Americans and Hispanics put together. And they’re loyal, too. Over the past several cycles they are second only to African Americans in terms of commitment to the party.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6033_unmarried_women.html
Two-thirds of AA voters are women.
I don’t know of ANY group of Democrats that had a 98% turnout. Where’d you get that number?
I don’t know of ANY group of Democrats that had a 98% turnout.
democratic voters who turn out have a 100% turnout rate.
seriously, the turnout thing cuts both ways. if democratic women turn out reliably, but african americans have to be more motivated to turn out, you can argue that obama is more electable because democratic women can be relied upon to show up no matter who the nominee is whereas african americans will turn out if they have the motivation. or you can argue that the same is true with clinton and hispanics. if you talk about a group who reliably turns out in election after election, often that means they get taken for granted and taken out of the equation.
but in any case, anyone who talks about electability is probably talking out there ass. people are “electable” when they are elected. period. it’s all after the fact. kerry was the most electable democratic candidate right up to the moment that he wasn’t elected. if he had been elected (which would only take a relatively small number of ohio votes to be credited the other way), his electability would be considered common wisdom, obvious even. because no one really can prove electability except in retrospect, anyone who makes an “electability” argument is really just projecting their own biases about what they want to happen in the election.
I’m with Bob on this one. Why even have primaries/caucuses when the whole deal can be overturned. This “super delegate” deal is about dictating to the voter by the party, because you, John Q Public don’t really know what’s best (unless we agree with it). We don’t give a shit what you have voted for. We will decide this, not you buncha idiots. Kinda reminds me of some Frank Zappa lines:
You will obey me while I lead you
Eat the garbage that I feed you
Untill the day that we don’t need you
Don’t run for help, no one will heed you
The one thing I know is, those old politicians know their districts intimately. If they say someone can win (or can’t), I’d listen to them before I’d listen to me. They know a lot more about human nature and how it affects their district’s voting patterns.
Oh, and Barry? Here’s your first warning. Knock it off.
Susie;
My apology - I meant 88% - not 98%. Clinton got roughly 86% in both his races, Gore and Kerry hit about 90%. With McCain on the ticket - a man who at age 47 voted against the MLK Federal Holiday, it’s hard to see the Republican’s making much headway here.
We are discussing two different things and within those parameters we are both right. Democratic Party vote totals for women are higher as you point out; the percentage of all members within the group voting for the Democrat are higher among African-Americans as I point out. The party can’t afford to lose either group.
Well if you add in the votes from Michigan and Florida, and accept the conventional wisdom as to who will get how many votes in the remaining contests, isn’t the difference in the popular vote really miniscule? As for pledged delegates, there’s nothing democratic about that, as far as I can tell it mirrors the electoral college apportionment in that it’s like 300,000+ votes in California = 1 delegate; 6,000 votes in Wyoming = 2 delegates (or something along those lines). Not to mention that Obama’s current popular vote lead (which excludes FL and MI) consists of half or more from Illinois, and a good proportion of that from one county, Cook County. So all this business about discerning the “will of the people” boils down to which people and how do you count.
And if you’re saying that the people that count most are the African American voters, I’m sorry to be a typical white person, but why should that be? Perhaps you can (or maybe you can’t) make a legitimate electability argument, but if your argument is on moral grounds, I’m not persuaded - especially since it appears that many AAs are opposed to Clinton because they have been persuaded that she is racist, a charge which has no substance. If she was really a racist there would be a moral imperative but since she’s not there isn’t.
susie -
your comment of “Those politicians know better than any of us,…” is troubling…
why give you a vote then? Or me, or anyone? Those “politicians” who know their districts better than anyone used support Jim Crow laws, sexists old fat pigs…many still are. I don’t want them deciding who will win…who can honestly say or explain why OB is unelectable? I have posed that question here more than once…he is winning white states (and not just the caucases), he is bringing huge numbers of new voters, his coattails are confirmed by a dem winning hasterts district…the whole idea of superD’s having the power to overturn popular vote totals reeks of communism at its best…what if hrc was ahead and the superD’s handed it to OB since the well-documented clinton-hate machine will likely spell a GE loss? Oh, never mind…hrc and co are too busy to play “shoe on other foot” game…although mr hrc tried to play it a bit in cali over the weekend with some delegates and ended up getting all red-faced and finger-waggy…
Amelia @ 13. Please provide one quote from anything I have ever written anywhere which could lead any reasonable person to believe I think African-American votes should count more than any other. All I said was a group that votes in the neighborhood of 88% Democratic can’t be jerked around by the Democratic Party. Politics 101 – keep your base happy and motivated.
As for adding in the votes from MI and FL you are correct – they certainly would narrow the gap. Of course that’s easy to understand when you consider both Obama and Clinton signed pledges agreeing the state delegations would not be seated and that no candidates would campaign in either state – a pledge Clinton violated by campaigning in FL. The Democratic Party acted legally and ethically in this case – they have every right to set and keep to a schedule of primaries and caucuses. When states ignore that and change the date of their vote it is perfectly reasonable for the party to punish them. Had the party not made candidates sign said pledges and had all the candidates actually run in those states counting their delegates would be fine. Counting the existing vote would be wrong because Obama lived up to his agreement. A revote rewards those two states for ignoring the rules and makes them kingmakers.
Susie@11: Remember 2000? Democrats – party insiders – were praying Bush would get the nomination over McCain. No way we could lose to a dim-witted, inexperienced Boy-King like him. And before anyone brings up FL and says he didn’t win ask yourself this: if you push 1,000 votes the other way Gore wins – does that mean Bush has now gone from electable to unelectable or does mean the Democratic Party insiders grossly misjudged his ability to campaign? As snuzy said above, the whole electability argument is shaky at best. Of course after the votes are counted we are all experts. Beforehand? Not so much.