The Candidates
I’m thinking we might have to designate Sean our resident Oracle here at Race42008. Yesterday, after running a bunch of regressions and other statistics related things that I only have a vague understanding of, Sean predicted that the results of the Indiana primary would be a 14 point win for Hillary Clinton, 57-43. Well, lo and behold, SurveyUSA is just out with their final pre-Indiana poll and the results are shockingly similar.
SurveyUSA Indiana Democratic Primary
- Hillary Clinton 54% (52%)
- Barack Obama 42% (43%)
1,600 state of Indiana adults were interviewed 05/02/08 through 05/04/08. Of the Indiana adults, 1,400 were registered to vote. Of them, 675 were identified by SurveyUSA as likely to vote in the 05/06/08 Indiana Democratic Primary. 3% of Indiana likely voters in today’s poll tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, 97% will vote at the precinct tomorrow. 72 delegates will be proportionally awarded to the Democratic National Convention. It is not knowable precisely how many net convention delegates Clinton will pick up in Indiana, but the exact size of her win will determine how much symbolism to attach to it.
Sean also predicted last week that given the demographics of North Carolina, it was likely that the best Hillary could do was narrow the gap to a 10 point loss, 55-45. Well, take a look at this:
SurveyUSA North Carolina Democratic Primary
- Barack Obama 50%
- Hillary Clinton 45%
2,100 NC adults were interviewed 05/02/08 through 05/04/08. Of them, 1,801 were registered to vote. Of them, 810 were determined by SurveyUSA to have already voted, or to be likely to vote tomorrow, 05/06/08. Unaffiliated voters are allowed to vote in the NC Democratic Primary. One-stop early voting began on 04/17/08 and ended 05/03/08. 115 delegates will be awarded, proportionately, to the Democratic National Convention.
Seriously, if tomorrow’s primary results are even remotely close to Sean’s predictions, I expect that he’d be able to get a job with any pollster he wants.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
55-45 Hillary in Ind, 52-48 Obama in NC.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
It’s amazing to watch TV and read the media and see how they all act like the race is tied and Hillary can still win and tomorrow will change everything.
Obama is up by 155 pledged delegates.
Super Delegates have broken 23-13 for him in the past 2 weeks. That’s after Pennsylvania, by the way.
She really has no shot of winning this whatsoever.
All she’s succeeded in doing is racially polarizing the dem electorate and tearing down Obama, making it tougher for him in November, which was her and Bill’s goal all along.
The media keeps pretending because it’s great ratings to say the race is neck and neck and they’ll milk the cow all the way to the convention in August.
But in reality, for those that have been paying attention, Obama wrapped this up 2 months ago.
Clinton has been cooked ever since 2/19, but she and Bill are so selfish they’d rather see Obama and the party lose in Novemeber than be supplanted as leaders of the party.
Hillary need close to 90% of remaining super delegates
May 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
jim: Superdelegates can change their mind at any time.
Hillary’s been trading between 20-25 at Intrade for a few weeks now.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I often wondered why few people make more of this. This is key. If Obama looks much weaker at convention time I see no reason why the superdelegates won’t flock to Clinton. The media portrays this as if once the superdelegates decide it’s locked in stone. There is no reason whatsoever for this to be the case. Obama is a very weak front-runner or he would have sewn this up already . Since he is so weak there is no reason Clinton can’t or shouldn’t make her case in August. As a Republican I’m happy to see this back-and-forth war continue because it only helps McCain - but on general principle I’m sick and tired of seeing these Democrat elites and media types try to force Hillary out. That Obama can’t win without superdelegates despite his financial advantage and that he’s got the media in his pocket is Obama’s problem - not Clinton’s.
She’s come this far and has every reason to keep fighting as long as she has a chance of emerging victorious.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
And furthermore Obama supporters raise holy hell when Clinton-backers suggest that Obama’s caucus state wins shouldn’t be determinative because a) caucuses are not democratic and b) Democrats won’t win those states in the Fall anyway. Obama supporters say that Obama won those delegates fair and square even if he took advantage of a convoluted system. Fair point - but if Clinton tries to woo already commited delegates then she is operating within fair confines of the same convoluted system. There is no reason that she can’t do this. Nothing in the rules says she can’t. In fact, if I were a Democrat I would welcome someone with such determination to win by all means necessary.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Metro,
Exactly. Just like Joe Andrew did last week and went from Clinton to Obama. Thus far, not one Obama Super Delegate has defected. Not one. And that’s after Wright, after everything, after Bill and Hillary Clinton have spent 3 months tearing him down and turning him into the angry black guy who white folks just won’t for.
Obama’s a weak frontrunner? What does that make Clinton? He did sew it up. He sewed it up back in February. Any other candidate would have withdrawn and helped the party unite and win in November. But Hillary is so selfish and her and Bill are so aghast at the thought of an upstart young black guy coming in and taking what they thought hey owned, what was owed to them, that they refuse to let him have it.
So she’d rather fight this all the way to August, lose on the 1st ballot, and see the party go down in November.
This is over and it has been for a while. All that’s been happening is Bill and Hillary playing the race card to ensure Obama loses in the fall.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
In a way, thats why I have more respect for Romney and Huckabee than Clinton.
Both of them could have stayed in. They could have gone negative on McCain and did everything in their power to tear him down, make him unelectable. They could have brought up his age, raised concerns about his health, brought up the Keating Five scandal every day and sent surrogates to all the news shows and newspapers and mentioned how McCain is unelectable, tied him to Bush, have said he’s reckless and not qualified to be commander in chief, Huckabee could have made a religious argument to ruin McCain among evangelicals and torpedo him for the fall. They could have done all that and more, just like Hillary has been doing for months now.
But they didn’t. Because they understand what honor means. Her and Bill don’t.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
“Obama’s a weak frontrunner? What does that make Clinton? He did sew it up”
No. Obama is doing exceedingly badly everywhere there is a one-person one-vote contest and every people actually vote in a voting booth - behind the curtain. The only exception to this is in a few high AA states where blacks are bloc voting for him. Bill Clinton was a strong front-runner. Kerry, for all his faults, was a strong front-runner. They didn’t have to wait until Pennsylvania and Indiana to win the nomination. And Hillary is the underdog. The party apparatus has deserted her and she has no money. Yet somehow she still manages to win a major swing state like Pennsylvania by ten points. If Obama was even a modestly strong front-runner that never would have happened.
He didn’t sew it up because he, like Clinton, can’t win without a bunch of party hacks crowning him prince.
As for the race card, it could be argued that Obama is playing the race card. It certainly was convenient that Obama stayed in church with a racist church elder for twenty years just to keep his street cred with the urban blacks in his state senate district. I don’t for a minute believe that Obama was oblivious to rants speaking of the “US of KKK A” for a total of two decades. So we either have to believe that Obama is naive and dumb to be so oblivious or that he fully aware of all of this and didn’t mind being intimately affiliated with a racist hate-monger to further his political career. And what about Ayers? A known terrorist helps launch Obama’s senate career and laments that he didn’t blow up more buildings on 9/11 of all days. Yet Obama thinks is just a fuzzy warm and lovable little “Professor of English”. Now I don’t necessarily believe that Obama subscribes to Wright’s or Ayers’ radicalism. He may - but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Still - he had no problem whoring himself out to these people just because it helped him politically in a liberal Illinois senate district. I’m not here to defend the Clintons but what about what Barry did in the case of Ayers and Wright? That’s honorable? I don’t think so.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
jim, if you want to debate it, drop the “sewn it up” line. It makes you look stupid.
Even if Hillary has only a 10% chance, or less, Obama has not “sewn it up.”
May 5th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
jim,
I think you’re entirely misunderstanding the situation. Superdelegates aren’t defecting from Obama because they can’t afford to weaken their front-runner at this stage unless they have a way to easily jettison him. In other words, if superdelegates do eventually start defecting, they’ll do so in a deluge, not a trickle.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Adam,
One could likewise say the only states Hillary does well in are those states where there a lot white people and hispanics who don’t exactly like black folks.
Hillary wins in states where white people and white women bloc vote for her. If there are states that have any diversity, she loses.
You say she has no money? She has plenty of money. Only by comparison to Obama does she have little. She’s raised more than any candidaite in history other than Obama. She raised 20M in March and probably at least that if not more in April. She has 110M+ in the bank. She has plenty of money.
She’s also able to effectively double team Obama as far as campaigning as she has Bill Clinton campaigning in 5-7 towns a day playing the race card and telling all those rural white people that she’s still running because of people like you and that Obama isn’t like you. I wonder what Bill means by that? Actually, I don’t.
Clinton and Kerry were strong front runners because their opponents weren’t on some egotistical trip that would rather see the party lose and their most important voting blocs torn asunder for decades.
If you think with Bill Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, Harold Ickes, James Carville, Paul Begala, Ed Rendell, Evan Bayh, Ted Strickland, Emily’s List, NOW, and others in her corner that the party apparatus has deserted her, you don’t know the pary. Certainly many have, but she still has plenty of VIPs and big shots in her corner.
I’m not saying what Obama has done with Wright or Ayers is honorable or good. But it’s undeniable that the Clintons are pursuing what could even be called a “southern strategy” in tagging Obama as the black guy and stoking up white fear and resentment of that. Even Ed Rendell said that being black cost Obama 5 pts in PA.
Metro, perhaps “sewn it up” was a term of art, but for all practical purposes, Obama did win the nomination during those 10 days in February when he gained a net 130 delegates on her.
For comparison, even with all her big wins in OH, TX and PA, since March 3rd, clinton has LOST a net 3 pledged delegates. That with her big wins that supposedly changed everything.
he’s going to lead by around 140 pledged delegates on June 4th and the super delegate gap is shrinking every day. He’s outgained her 23-13 since Pennsylvania and her supposedly moementum changing win there.
He has another 35 or super delegates lined up as a result of add-ons that will trickle in over the next month or so.
If you look at the remaining undeclared supers, she needs more than 85% to win.
She even said on TV this week with a straight face that she’s leading in the popular vote…When the only way she is if you count her votes from Michigan and give Obama 0 votes. That’s how low her and Bill have sunk.
So is it “official”? No, it’s not. But her and Bill are only in it to spoil Obama and ensure his defeat in November. If he wins in the fall, it’s over for them. It’s always been about them and that’s all they care about. Bill just wants to maintain his legacy as the only democrat to win, the only democrat who knows how to win, the all knowing leader of the party. They’re clinging to power.
Now, has Obama put them away as well as he could have? No. But when all is said and done, he’ll be the one on stage in Denver, and Bill and Hillary will be yesterday’s news.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Jim,
“One could likewise say the only states Hillary does well in are those states where there a lot white people….”
I don’t know if you noticed this Jim, but virtually every state that will be casting electoral votes this fall has “a lot of white people.”
It’s awful hard to win without white folks. You could try it, but I wouldn’t advise it……
May 5th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Jim,
But white women are not voting for her in numbers like 95-5 like blacks are voting for Obama or Mormons voted for Romney. 65-35 or 70-30 is doing well with a subgroup of people. 90 percentage or higher from a certain subgroup for one candidate is what I would call bloc voting.
It’s still quite a stark contrast between first and second though. So stark that Obama was able to outspend Hillary by 3 to 1 in PA. Since you have made a habit of coming on here and talking up Obama I’m assuming you actually support him and aren’t merely playing devil’s advocate on a Republican-leaning website. That’s the fine - but I want to understand where you are coming from. Doesn’t it concern you that Obama can’t seal the deal in these swing states? Shouldn’t Obama be doing better among whites if he is as close to sewing this up as you like to suggest? That he is not doesn’t scare you that he might not be the best horse to bet on to beat McCain in the Fall?
But even if you want to grant for the sake of argument that Bill Clinton is playing the race card (I’m not convinced he is) - he was playing that same card after South Carolina. Yet Obama was able to clobber Hillary in Virginia. It wasn’t even close. It seems to me that Bill Clinton’s argument only resonated after Obama’s “Bitter/Cling” comments. And that’s entirely Obama’s fault. It was a boneheaded thing to say. Bill Clinton is right. Obama isn’t like the rural blue-collar whites, and for plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with race. Why shouldn’t the Clintons be able to capitalize on it?
But is that an argument that Obama supporters want to make? Should Obama’s big win in percentages of the caucus state of Idaho (which I’m sure you would concede won’t be in the D column in November) really be more determinative than Clinton’s 10-point win in Pennsylvania? If the system was really fair would Obama be able to net more delegates in Idaho than Clinton did in Pennsylvania? Good on Obama for gaming the undemocratic caucus states and coming up with more delegates in such contests with light turnout. But the entire process is too convoluted and needs to be revamped.
But again, that’s assuming that Obama delegates don’t change their mind. Nothing is set in stone preventing them from happening. And if nothing else, the last few months have proved that the Democrats did an exceedingly poor job vetting their platinum candidate with the original perception of perfection. Who knows what else is going to come up? What if Wright offers conclusive evidence that Obama was in church cheering on his hate speech? What if he has something else on Obama and wants to railroad him because Obama gave him the Romney/Craig treatment? What about Ayers? What about something else that is totally unforseen? Plenty can come up to change the minds of these superdelegates.
Probably. But from where I sit, I would say she still has about a 1 in 4 chance of pulling this off. Especially if she wins the popular vote (counting FL and not MI or better off not even needing to count FL). With that sort of chance, there is no reason for her to quit this thing.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Adam,
I’ve been on this site for over a year, and I’m not an Obama supporter. I was a Rudy guy, although I guess you could say I’m fairly satisfied with McCain and when it came down to him, Romney and Huckabee, he was my guy.
I do find it odd that all these conservatives and Republicans are all of a sudden the biggest Clinton backers out there. It would be poetic justice if Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos ends up saving her and getting her the nomination. She beats McCain in the fll, no question. None. I wonder how all these Republicans and conservatives who love her now would feel when her and Bill are back in control with huge majorities in both houses?
Fortunately, it won’t happen. Obama, assuming he wins tomorrow in NC, will win the noination. If he loses in NC, he probably still wins, but she has a better chance.
65-70% is bloc voting. Obama’s 90% of the black vote is a super-bloc. But I bet Hillary is up among 90% of white women among certain demos. Say white women over 50, especially catholic white women over 50 who are awfully present in OH and PA.
You say super delegates can change their minds? Yes, they can. What happens when Obama and his supporters remind them of the catastrophic losses the party suffered the last time Bill and Hillary were in charge? The 50 seats lost in the house, the 10 in the Senate, the governorships, the state houses? What happens when names like Marc Rich, and Johnny Chung, and John Huang, and Victor Riady, and pardoning FALN terrorists, and Waco and Ruby Ridge, and signing the AWB and the Brady Bill, and impeachment, and the whole host of other negatives the Clintons bring. Obama hasn’t lifted a finger against them. He’s been downright soft. You think a few supers may change their minds after they think about the millions of voters under 35 who could desert the party in droves, the fact that they could lose the 90% of the black voet they need to win.
As it is, given that Supers have broken 23-13 for him since PA, and that’s with Wright and him not being able to close the dela, I don’t think he has too much to worry about. If you look at who the remaining Supers are and what states and districts they come from, he has a lock on close to 100 of them, including some of the biggest names like Pelosi, Gore, Clyburn, Brazile and others. The chances of Hillary getting 85%+ or some mass defection from Obama is miniscule and after he wins NC, will be close to nil. Now, if Obama gets caught dealing drugs or video surfaces of him at one of Wright’s sermons or something like that, who knows? But in that case, Hillary would probably get it anyway, even if she was 1000 delegates behind.
As I said, I’m not an Obama guy, but I prefer him over Hillary for the nomination. I want the Clintons dead and buried. They’ve been around enough and it’s time for new blood. I don’t want another 4-8 years of both sides hating one another. It’ll be worse this time because not only will the Clintons be out to settle scores with conservatives and the GOP, but they now hate half of their own party and their entire liberal base as well. All conservatives and all republicans should be hoping Obama wins big in NC tomorrow and drives the stake through Bill and Hillary once and for all. The development where conservatives at NR and the Weekly Standard are all of a sudden slobbering all over Hillary is sickening. The way FOX and O’Reilly and Hannity have laid down for her and become her biggest fans is disgusting. I remember when Sean had the Stop Hillary express. Now all of a sudden she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
McCain and his supporters should hope she loses. He has virtually no chance of beating her. Her lock on the female vote will doom him.
Against Obama, McCain will reap the beneifts of aggrieved and disheartened white women voters angry that the young guy beat their gal. A woman VP would go a long way to ensuring his victory.
I can’t understand one republican or conservative ever rooting for the Clintons. Explain it to me if you can.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Jim,
My apologies for insulting you and call you a Democrat
First off - I don’t “Operation Chaos” is anything other than Rush Limbaugh trying to resurrect his importance after looking utterly impotent from his failed attempt to take down McCain. Republicans voted for Obama in Democrat primaries early because they liked his idea of racial transcendence and post-partisanship and because they wanted to finally be rid of the Clintons. They voted for Clinton after Obama’s halo began to tarnish and he was revealed to be nothing more than your garden variety liberal Democrat politician. And one that is hardly the post-racial guy he presented himself to be. And the votes went this way with or without Limbuagh.
All of what you’re saying about the Clintons is true. They’re shady and associate with shady characters. Obama seems to be just as bad with Rezko, Ayers and Wright. And I agree - Obama **has** been soft. He can’t seem to take a hit and he can’t seem to land an effective punch. I think we’re seeing this and the superdelegates are seeing it too. Matt Miller is right. The reason the superdelegates are now coming around to Obama is two-fold. First they want this to end because it’s tearing the party apart and secondly they are rallying to Obama as part of a “circle the wagons” tour. They sense he is weak and the surrogates are lining up now with the ferocity of a wild animal protecting its young. But I think that is more of a demonstration of Obama’s weakness than it is his strength. And probably there is residual anger from the Clintons losing congress and from the Clintons looking out primarily for the Clintons. I certainly don’t think that young voters or black voters are in any danger of leaving the Democrats. They never ever have. If I was a Democrat I would be much more concerned about losing the white blue-collar vote and the white female vote. Blue-collar whites have moved away from the Democrats, but Democrats need to at least hold their own among this group because everytime they get blown away in this constituency they lose.
I think we’re pretty much in agreement that Obama has to be favored at this point given his delegate lead. All I’m saying is that there is “reasonable doubt” that Obama can pull this off. Wright and Ayers came out of left field and caused real damage to the Obama brand. I’m not sure he can survive another hit like that.
You say you’re tired of the Clintons and you want new blood. I can appreciate that - but the flip side to that (and part of the reason the GOP is now rooting for Hillary) is that it’s better to deal with the devil you know. The country didn’t move radically to the left in the 1990’s. Now some of that can be attributed to the GOP congress, but also it’s pretty much agreed that Clinton moved to the right on some issues (welfare reform as an example) out of pragmatism. Clinton certainly seems to have learned that lesson too - and her rhetorical makeover over the last month seems to show it. Now I think she is full of it - but she knows damn well where the votes are in a general election - just like her husband did - and I think there is an emerging consensus that she’ll respect that to at least a minimal degree and that ought to prevent her from straying too far to the left. I don’t get that sense at all from Obama. I’m thinking about drivers’ licenses for illegals here, and for raising capital gains even if it hurts the economy just to punish the rich. On the issues it seems like we’re talking about a movement liberal in Obama and just a garden variety politician out for personal power who happens to have liberal tendancies in Hillary Clinton.
I’m not sure the newfound appreciation for Hillary is based on any desire to face her in the general election. My sense is that Republicans would rather face Obama and that for reasons you outlined, most likely will face Obama. Most Republicans I talk to don’t really think she has a shot and are only propping her up so she bloodies Obama further. The constant back and forth has been good for the GOP.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
All good points.
However, you write that the black vote has never deserted the democrats. True. But the democrats have never deserted the black vote, either. If they steal the nomination from the first black guy who’s carried 90%+ of the black vote, and give it to the white establishment figure who’s trailing him in delegates, because they’re afriad he’ll be seen as the black candidate and won’t be able to win white votes, then that’ll be a whole new ball game. It’ll be the like Hillary getting on the bus, seeing Obama in the front seat, and the party telling him to get up and move to the back. I don’t think blacks will take to kindly to that.
And they don’t have to desert them in droves. If even 10% of them do, the dems are in huge trouble.
And that would be something that would linger for years. It could hurt the party long term for decades.