When Hillary Clinton wins the North Carolina and the Oregon primaries,\u00c2\u00a0I will take seriously the possibility she might be able to convince the\u00c2\u00a07 or 8 out of 10 out-standing “Super-delegates” necessary to grant her\u00c2\u00a0the nomination.\u00c2\u00a0 In the meantime, I figure yesterday’s Pennsylvania\u00c2\u00a0result as somewhat tedious, and seemingly tapped in stone six weeks ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Note that the margin of victory (and after “Bitter” and after Wright)\u00c2\u00a0was the same as the margin of victory for demographically similar\u00c2\u00a0Ohio, which I suppose combined with her phantom victory in lieu of what\u00c2\u00a0would probably be a (slimmer) real victory in Florida I guess would be the\u00c2\u00a0pointer to the Super-delegates of the trio of Swing-states for the\u00c2\u00a0question “Why can’t he close the deal?”<\/p>\n
Actually, we largely just sort of have an interesting sociological\u00c2\u00a0painting of the Democratic Party, statewide, regional, and nation-wide,\u00c2\u00a0worthy of study and squinting.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is another wearisome lesson in\u00c2\u00a0Democracy, in regards to how the electorate is sliced and diced and coralled.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyone who believes that Obama’s San Francisco duo words of “bitter”\u00c2\u00a0and “clinging” had no effect and don’t portend to a problem in the\u00c2\u00a0General election is fooling him\/herself.\u00c2\u00a0 But recognize that Hillary\u00c2\u00a0Clinton in the 1990s used the word “idiots” instead, which I gather would\u00c2\u00a0have shifted the electoral calculus around if uttered in the year 2008 and\u00c2\u00a0made the salt-of-the-earth fictional bits about her dear hunting\u00c2\u00a0grandpa a bit harder to toss out.<\/p>\n
The general election match up polling has seen McCain draw even or\u00c2\u00a0slightly ahead of Obama, and clearly ahead of Clinton, which has garnered\u00c2\u00a0the commentary about the dangers of this prolonged primary struggle (to\u00c2\u00a0end in this inevitable, though oft delayed, Obama nomination).\u00c2\u00a0 I tend\u00c2\u00a0to see the glass half full in this equation, which is that Obama will\u00c2\u00a0go into the General Election with a clearer idea of his electoral fault\u00c2\u00a0lines.\u00c2\u00a0 They are rather predictable and run to the “out of touch\u00c2\u00a0(cultural) Liberal Elitist”, with the “Flag” problem returning out of the\u00c2\u00a01988 election, and with a smattering of Race politics added.\u00c2\u00a0 Reagan\u00c2\u00a0Democrats, previously Nixon Democrats, to a good extent previously\u00c2\u00a0Eisenhower Democrats, and God I wish I could but I can’t use the antecedent of\u00c2\u00a0Hoover Democrats.\u00c2\u00a0 (The problem there is that in his landslide defeat,\u00c2\u00a0Smith lined up and corralled the ethnic Catholic vote, and all those\u00c2\u00a0next three elected Republican presidents tapped that voting block.\u00c2\u00a0 However, I did see an echo into the shenanigans Hoover pulled in breaking the\u00c2\u00a0“Solid South” with this story<\/a>.)<\/p>\n I suggest that the Reverend Wright controversy blew up at the optimum\u00c2\u00a0time for Obama, inasmuch as it gave some recovery time to end the\u00c2\u00a0Pennsylvania primary at its pre-ordained margin of defeat, and inasmuch as it\u00c2\u00a0did not lead to any additional Hillary Clinton victories which might\u00c2\u00a0have flipped their position, and inasmuch as it will be old news for the\u00c2\u00a0General Election, albeit old news the McCain campaign will mine and\u00c2\u00a0old news which has seeped into the conciousness of the parts of the\u00c2\u00a0public apt to regard it as terribly problematic.<\/p>\n The polling fade and the clear electoral fault-lines should have\u00c2\u00a0everyone rooting or working for an Obama vicctory on pins and needles.\u00c2\u00a0 But\u00c2\u00a0the lead through 2007 and the beginning of 2008 came prior to Obama’s\u00c2\u00a0cultural-political fault-lines being exposed.\u00c2\u00a0 The current rough tie is\u00c2\u00a0at a stage where McCain’s liabilities are not being exposed.\u00c2\u00a0 The\u00c2\u00a0current president sits at the lowest approval rating in recorded history, a\u00c2\u00a0feat he has been at or nearly at for over a year now.\u00c2\u00a0 He has shown a\u00c2\u00a0dissonance far greater than Obama’s “Bitter” comment regarding the\u00c2\u00a0economy (or should be — I recognize the cultural debris surrounding this), insisting we are not in a Recession — and more to the point these\u00c2\u00a0sentiments are being echoed by John McCain.\u00c2\u00a0 I suggest the problem with\u00c2\u00a0the new DNC ad is that does not intersperse Bush into the McCain\u00c2\u00a0flutters.\u00c2\u00a0 McCain has pointedly insisted that there “are going to be more\u00c2\u00a0wars”, has sang the first chords of “Bomb Iran”, and referenced “1,000\u00c2\u00a0Years” in terms of our stay in Iraq.\u00c2\u00a0 His quick temper and hot-headedness\u00c2\u00a0are legendary and noted among his Republican colleagues, and his age\u00c2\u00a0surfaces as his gaffes run the line of “Senior Moments”.<\/p>\n Whatever Obama’s faultlines to be exploited, McCain has more.\u00c2\u00a0 Also the\u00c2\u00a0fundamentals favor the Democratic Party — dynamics which favored Bush in 2004 and only slightly favored Gore in 2000.\u00c2\u00a0 Go down ticket, and you find\u00c2\u00a0that Mary Landrieu leades her opponent in poll numbers by roughly the\u00c2\u00a0same margin Elizabeth Dole leads her opponent.\u00c2\u00a0 The difference between\u00c2\u00a0these two races is that Landrieu’s is the most likely Democratic seat\u00c2\u00a0to be picked off by the Republicans, Dole’s is about the tenth most\u00c2\u00a0likely Republican seat to be picked off by the Democrats.\u00c2\u00a0 A similar\u00c2\u00a0dynamic is working its way in the House of Representatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is entirely possible that we will look back in November and shrug\u00c2\u00a0off an easy or landslide victory by Obama as rather inevitable, such that you look back at reports from old land-slide elections and laugh at the “close election” fretterings.\u00c2\u00a0 But, then again, one look at those 45 minute delay in the debate to an actual policy question shows that Obama’s electoral pit-falls can land him on the other side of that coin.\u00c2\u00a0 For Obama, it is better that it be laid bare in front of him so he can proceed and be less apt to be blind-sided by such debris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Hillary Clinton wins the North Carolina and the Oregon primaries,\u00c2\u00a0I will take seriously the possibility she might be able to convince the\u00c2\u00a07 or 8 out of 10 out-standing “Super-delegates” necessary to grant her\u00c2\u00a0the nomination.\u00c2\u00a0 In the meantime, I figure yesterday’s Pennsylvania\u00c2\u00a0result as somewhat tedious, and seemingly tapped in stone six weeks ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Note that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}