4/23/2008 IS OBAMA IN TROUBLE? CATEGORY: Decision '08, OBAMANIA!, Politics

Conventional wisdom says Obama is not in any danger of losing the nomination as long as he remains ahead in the pledged delegate count.

I would say that this is true at this point despite his blow out loss yesterday [Tuesday 4/22/2008] to Clinton in Pennsylvania.

• And yes friends, it was a blow out.
• When you lose 62% of the white vote, that’s a blowout.
• When you lose 70% of the Catholic vote, that is a blowout.
• When you lose 57% of the Jewish vote, that’s a blowout.
• When you lose 58% of churchgoers, that is a blowout.
• When you lose 54% of workers making less than $50,000 a year (and win only those making less than $15,000 and more than $150,000), that’s a blowout.
• When you lose 63% of seniors, that’s a blowout.
• When you outspend your opponent by 3-1 and still lose by 10 points, that’s a blowout.

Obama was thoroughly and completely trounced, being saved only by his dominance with young voters and African Americans.

Otherwise, Clinton would have gotten her 20 point win and we would probably be looking at an entirely different campaign today.

But we’re not. And Obama is not in trouble – yet.

The May 6 primary in Indiana will be an interesting test for him since he is expected to breeze to victory in North Carolina’s contest held the same day. Once again he will have the opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton campaign – this time by winning Indiana.

Indiana does not set up well for Obama except in the southeastern northwestern part of the state where Gary, an ex-steel town with an 85% African American population will give him overwhelming support thanks to its proximity to Chicago.

The rest of the state will be a problem for him – especially Indianapolis which is one of the more conservative big cities in America.

And Indiana voters look something like those same rural Pennsylvania voters who just snubbed him.

Clearly, he has an uphill climb to defeat Clinton in the Hoosier state.

It is in North Carolina where Obama is in a must win situation. He is way ahead in the polls at this point – anywhere from 9-13 points.

But looking at the PA exit polls once again, trouble may be brewing in Obamaland that could make North Carolina and much tougher race than it appears to be now.

In a piece headlined “The Next McGovern?” John Judis at TNR shows what is happening to some heretofore strong constituencies for Obama:

For his part, Obama cut into Clinton’s advantage, but couldn’t erase it.

Even though he campaigned extensively among white working class Pennsylvanians, he still couldn’t crack this constituency.

He lost every white working class county in the state.

He lost greater Pittsburgh area by 61 to 39 percent.

He did poorly among Catholics—losing them 71 to 29 percent.

A Democrat can’t win Pennsylvania in the fall without these voters.

And those who didn’t vote in the primary but will vote in the general election are likely to be even less amenable to Obama.

But Obama also lost ground among the upscale white professionals that had helped him win states like Wisconsin, Maryland, and Virginia.

For instance, Obama won my own Montgomery County, Maryland by 55 to 43 percent but he lost suburban Philadelphia’s very similar Montgomery County by 51 to 49 percent to Clinton.

He lost upscale arty Bucks County by 62 to 38 percent.

My colleague Noam Scheiber attributes Clinton’s success among these suburbanites to the influence of Governor Ed Rendell, who campaigned with Clinton, but I wonder whether Obama’s gaffes and his suspect associations—whether with Wright or former Weatherman Bill Ayers or real estate developer Tony Rezko—began to tarnish his image among these voters.

If so, the electoral premise of Obama’s campaign—that he can attract middle class Republicans and Independents—is being undermined.

Indeed, if you look at Obama’s vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the ‘70s and ‘80s, led by college students and minorities.

In Pennsylvania, Obama did best in college towns (60 to 40 percent in Penn State’s Centre County) and in heavily black areas like Philadelphia.

VDH also is channeling McGovern today:

They won’t be able to force Hillary out since she still has strong arguments — the popular vote may end up dead even, or even in her favor; while he won caucuses and out-of-play states, she won the critical fall battlegrounds — and by plebiscites; she is the more experienced and more likely to run a steady national campaign; she wins the Reagan Democrats that will determine the fall election; and by other, more logical nomination rules (like the Republicans’ fewer caucuses, winner-take-all elections) she would have already wrapped it up. There seems something unfair, after all, for someone to win these mega-states and end up only with a few extra delegates for the effort.

The more this drags out, the more Obama and Hillary get nastier and more estranged from each other — at precisely the time one must take the VP nomination to unite the party.

On the plus side, Hillary is showing a scrappy, tough blue-collar talent that is critical for November — but apparently it will be all for naught, or worse, cause lots of these Middle America “clingers” to go over to McCain.

More and more, McCain will want to run against Obama and his far weaker coalition of elite whites, African-Americans, students — and closets of skeletons.

More and more, we will start to see the buyer’s remorse of midsummer 1972.

In short, Obama’s base is shrinking and there is very little he can do to stop the bleeding.

This then, is the biggest race left for Obama.

He is not expected to win in Indiana, or West Virginia the following week or Kentucky the week after that (Oregon is considered a toss-up).

All of a sudden, North Carolina becomes a must win for him – proof that he still has that old magic and that his campaign is not falling apart, shriveling under the onslaught from Hillary, McCain, and a suddenly querulous press.

No, Obama is not in trouble because he lost Pennsylvania.

But the harbingers in the exit polls tell a story by which Obama may not enjoy the ending.

If he loses North Carolina, the drumbeat will begin from many Democrats to ignore the pledged delegate total and pick the candidate that has the best chance of defeating John McCain and the Republicans in November.

Correction: Gary is in the northwest not southeast part of the state. If it was in the southeast, the rest of the state would be under water, drowned by Lake Michigan.

By: Rick Moran at 1:06 pm | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (11)

To start with, this is a cut and paste from a blog calling itself the Right Wing Nut House. Got that right.

The consensus before the PA primary was that if Barack Obama kept Hillary Clinton's margin of victory in the single digits that would prevent a blowout loss. He did. Clinton needed a 20 point margin of victory in PA to stay competitive. Her actual 9 point margin left her with a hollow victory, not the blowout victory she needed.

Most of the argument here resurrects the brain-dead canard that if Obama does poorly with a particular demographic in the primaries then he'll do poorly with the same demographic in the general election. That makes no sense. The results of a contest between two Democrats cannot be extrapolated to a contest between a Democrat and a Republican.

Finally, there are no "must win" states for Barack Obama. If Clinton repeats her 9 point PA margin of victory in all the remaining states, she still loses the total count of pledged delegates. Because of her relatively poor showing in PA, Clinton now has to win almost 70% of the remaining pledged delegates up for grabs.

Bottom line: If Obama ties in IN and does as well in NC as Clinton did in PA, then the race for pledged delegates will be over.

Obama 08!

Goodness, I wish I was as well spoken as pwoxby. However, please let me comment that;

"If you lose 62% of the white vote it's a blowout"

and

If Grandma had wheels she'd be a wagon!

HRC's goal is to show that he's unelectable...by making him...unelectable.

Bush/Clinton/Rove/Carville - policies are different but cut from the same cloth. I hope and pray that this type of politics is a thing of the past. Wishful thinking I'm sure. But you have to at least try.

............... c'mon grandma

Obama's loss in Pennsylvania was exactly 9.2%. He lost 10 delegates off his lead. Do the math with me when looking at indiana and North Carolina:

If Obama lost those voting blocs you have listed (seniors, undeducated whites, women) by 30%, that means he was winning other voting blocs or his loss margin would have been much greater than 9.2%.

• Those other voting blocs are equally important and Hillary has failed to reach them (under 50; men; African-American; educated).
• When you average out these factors, the difference is gender, a factor that will not be present in the general election. (Catholicism is completely correlative in the cross-tabs to low income and white makes this an irrelevant factor since it is not an independent factor. Mccain has the support of Rev. Hagee who considers Catholics cultish and non-Christian.)
• Thus, the demographic make-up of Pennsyslvania and Ohio are unique. How do you think Obama won 30 states?
• There is no risk of losing North Carolina because Obama starts with 37% African-American, and 20% up-scale white. His victory will be in the neighborhood of 10-20% depending upon gaffes and campaign intensity. Hillary does not have money to alter the campaign intensity. (Obama is smart to avoid a debate.)
• Indiana is truly a toss-up because it skews far younger than Ohio and Pennsylvania and has a significant segment that is familiar with and supportive of Obama from the close-by Chicago media market. Also, women in Indiana skew less single issue (elect a female) than in Pennsylvania. (Look at the polling)
• Neither North Carolina nor Indiana has a political machine behind Hillary and Hillary does not have the advantage of a "home-town" background.
• Finally, and this is crucial in Indiana, the primary is "open" which causes the electorate to skew more anti-war, more affluent, younger, and more open to Obama's message. Independents are also drastically more anti-Clinton than Democrats.

Analysts (and I don't know if it is based on bias or lack of intense thought) look at Pennsylvania and Ohio as "big states" which is not a relevant reason they have favored Clinton. Nationwide, especially in the more difficult swing states, Obama has performed better.

Other than Kentucky, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico, Hillary does not have another state in which she will pick up serious delegates. Obama's delegate and popular vote lead will increase overall based on North Carolina, Oregon, Montana, and Dakota, not decrease.

The above analysis is based on experience in reading exit polliing data, and a realistic review of the remaining states. I had predicted a 12% loss by Obama in Pennsylvania, so I have never over-estimated his strength.

Thanks for all the good articles. Even the clueless mainstream media which chose him (and tried to anoint him as The Candidate) months ago over her & Biden, Dodd, Richardson, etc. is finally coming around and realizing it. Watching them hedge their bets and "curb their enthusiasm" for him, more and more since her clear victory in PA., has been almost funny. More important than funny, it is righteous. :-)

Especially given that he outspent her THREE TO ONE and still could not pull off a win in Penna. As for the source of the above information, no one calls The New Republic a "right wing nut house." You might try doing your homework and not just parroting clips from Obama's campaign website. You Obama supporters are like auto-robots, parroting the pre-packaged information & suggested posts that David Axelrod & what's his name Plouffe put up / out every day. Right down to your identical, sock-puppet-like "Obama 08" sign-off drivel in the exact same spot on all of your posts. Do any of you ever think for yourselves, ever?

Hillary Rox!

I don't think that we give AA credit, I think we will find that not all AA votes will go to Obama.

@ Onandaga:

Hey, just put your cursor in the blue area in the first or last line of BlueDolphin's post. What do you see as the originating website? Right Wing Nut House. Apology accepted.

Barack Obama outspent Hillary Clinton 3 to 1 because tens of millions of ordinary folks are contributing modest amounts to his campaign. Hillary Clinton's rich friends and all the lobbyists in Washington have already hit the Federal ceiling on bribes campaign contributions. Clinton's well has gone dry. Obama is drawing from a lake.

Obama 08! (Can I put it on your forehead? Pleeease!)