Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Imbeciles in America (or at Le... | Writing With Your Genitals »

Friday, March 7, 2008

Burn on Me. Burn on Annie. Burn on McCain!

posted by on March 7 at 11:32 AM

Survey USA just came out with a poll that has Obama winning all those states Annie said he would against McCain: Minnesota, Colorado, and Virginia (!). He also wins Ohio and New Mexico. But he loses: PA, and Florida. Ultimately, he beats McCain 280 to 258.

Meanwhile, Clinton beats McCain where I said she would: Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida (!), and New Mexico. She also beats McCain in Minnesota. She loses Colorado. She beats McCain overall 276 to 262.

RSS icon Comments

1

So, help me out here. Obama is now (a) more electable than Clinton when compared to McCain in national & state-by-state polling; (b) a vastly more accomplished fundraiser; (c) running a much more disciplined and effective campaign; (d) leading in the delegate count, and extremely unlikely to lose that lead unless the rules are changed in the middle of the game (which would itself tear the party apart and dash our hopes of regaining the White House).

Why is she still in the race, exactly? And if her name was, say, John Edwards or Joe Biden, wouldn't the media and other public pressure on her to drop out in this situation already have reached a fever pitch?

Posted by Trey | March 7, 2008 11:40 AM
2

Josh, commenters have been giving you links to this SurveyUSA poll for two days running.

Posted by elenchos | March 7, 2008 11:44 AM
3

That poll showing Obama beating McCain is also why all those GOP voters went for Hilary in OH. Giving her OH based on the primary is a bad bet.

Posted by Swampy | March 7, 2008 11:45 AM
4

Trey, when you say unless the rules are changed in the middle of the game (which would itself tear the party apart and dash our hopes of regaining the White House) don't you really mean as long as the democratic party establishment (with Obama's support) get to disenfranchise the voters of two large and important states?

Wait, I thought that the idea here was to be for including everyone and bucking the establishment.

Posted by Donolectic | March 7, 2008 11:48 AM
5

No, Donolectic, that's not what I mean by any stretch of the imagination. If those two states decide to hold fair & contested primaries or caucuses between now and the convention, I'll gladly accept the addition of those pledged delegates to the total. But if, solely at the behest of the Clintons and their supporters, the convention seats delegates chosen through the earlier elections in which the candidates did not compete (or even have all their names on the ballot in one case) then that's clearly something that's being done for the pure purpose of helping Hillary - and that scenario, my friend, while it could result in her nomination, would also certainly guarantee the election of John McCain as the 44th President.

Posted by Trey | March 7, 2008 11:57 AM
6

Survey USA also has Clinton losing WA and OR.

But check out the details. A sample size of only 600 voters?

Posted by Andy Niable | March 7, 2008 12:13 PM
7

Let her have 'em. FL and MI aren't enough, even as they stand now.

Posted by Fnarf | March 7, 2008 12:17 PM
8

BTW, Obama just picked up another eight-delegate shift in California. And the superdelegates are getting closer to coming out for him every day.

Posted by Fnarf | March 7, 2008 12:18 PM
9

Josh, you should look up Bush-Kerry match ups from March 2004. That would be a riot.

Posted by w7ngman | March 7, 2008 12:19 PM
10

All polls, of course, reflect an estimate of the truth at the time they were conducted. It is not difficult to imagine either Dem candidate losing or winning the party nomination or the general election.

In re the party, the only vote that matters takes place at the convention and delegates, pledged or otherwise, may vote as they see fit at the time (if it comes out that one of the candidates is a father-raper their pledged delegates might defect).

In re the general, Obama might get Swift-Boated beyond his ability to effectively respond without seriously compromising his good-guy image. Hillary may turn out to be an actual monster.

My one wish is that I wasn't interested.

Posted by umvue | March 7, 2008 12:27 PM
11

The party is divided beyond repair. Only Al Gore can save us now!!

Help us Al Gore! You're our only hope!!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | March 7, 2008 12:28 PM
12

Josh takes a page from Chaz; When the methodology used creates absurd results, don't admit or concede that the metholody is wrong.

Like when Charles was talking about what makes humans, human. He said that apes were in fact humans because they met the requirement of his criteria to be human.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | March 7, 2008 12:29 PM
13

So, either Dem candidate wins in the general based on recent polling... how is this bad news?

Posted by Soupytwist | March 7, 2008 12:39 PM
14

How lame that you in the MSM at The Stranger feel obligated to join your fellow sheep in attacking Obama when you know Clinton is the lesser choice.

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 7, 2008 12:43 PM
15

@6 ... 600 per state. That's a lot of robo phone calls to make.

Posted by Anon | March 7, 2008 1:27 PM
16

awesome, game over. now I can take that 10 month nap I've been needing, and wake up in OBAMALAND. Hooray!

Posted by wbrproductions | March 7, 2008 1:37 PM
17

Will what the hell???? Not even ECB has reported on the Rezko trial.

Obama has not been vetted. After college he worked as a community organizer. What did he organize? What significant did he accomplish?

He worked as a lawyer for about 10 years. Do we know of any specific cases besides Rezko? What has come out about his boss joining in business with Rezko?

Why isn't the media covering the trial? Rezko bought a $625,000 garden for Obama's benefit. He did it with money from a sketchy guy from Britain.

If you Obama suporters think that the Republicans don't have way more shit on him, well you're wrong

What the primaries seem to show us is that Obama even with a 2 to 1 money advantage can't win the vote in a large state.

Posted by McG | March 7, 2008 1:42 PM
18

McG, Obama did what he needed to do in Texas. The definition of victory in this nomination process is delegate count, and losing by 3% provided more than enough for him to still maintain his sizeable lead.

Shifting the definition of victory wont change that hillary wont get the nomination.

Deal with it.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | March 7, 2008 1:48 PM
19

and Obama got more delegates in Texas. Period.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | March 7, 2008 1:50 PM
20

Yes, @15, hence the high margin of error.

Posted by Andy Niable | March 7, 2008 2:04 PM
21

@3 is there any exit poll data that shows that substantial numbers of republicans crossed party lines to vote Clinton or are you just having sour grapes?

Posted by LMSW | March 7, 2008 2:09 PM
22

uh, no...I don't see Washington or New Jersey going with McCain despite the Dem nominee.

Posted by michael strangeways | March 7, 2008 2:45 PM
23

Well, I will vote for Ralph Nader here in Washington if Hillary Clinton gets the Dem. nomination.

Posted by Fonky | March 7, 2008 3:44 PM
24

Hillary Clinton has always struck me as a moderate Republican, an impression reinforced by her recent scorched-earth policies, siding with McCain against Obama. And she's bureaucratic and tedious. And there's not a chance in hell she'll make any substantial changes in our Iraq policy. And her management experience shows a lot of insularity and inflexibility. She also has a Nixonian tendency to keep enemies lists. Other than that -- go Hils!!!

Posted by Andy James | March 7, 2008 4:23 PM
25

Josh, I'd already seen this poll when I posted yesterday. Not that I was cheating or anything...

Posted by annie | March 7, 2008 4:46 PM
26

@6 picks up on the important (and local) angle here. Let's set all complaints about the fallibility of polls aside--they're well known and oft cited, but nonetheless a poll like this represents a somewhat probable outcome, which is why people bother to do polls despite their drawbacks. Despite winning the "important" "battleground" states of Florida and Ohio, Clinton comes away with fewer EC votes than Obama, quite contrary to Josh's math would have suggested (FL + OH > MN + WI + VA) and even though Obama also loses PA.

How? Because Hillary manages to lose such states as WA, OR, NV and NH. States with idealistic Democrats in the cities and a whole lot of Republicans and shoot-from-the-hip Independents in the hinterlands. Not to mention Michigan and Iowa. States that don't immediately come to mind as battlegrounds because maybe in the past they haven't really been battlegrounds, but when a Republican with a maverick reputation is on the ticket the past no longer is an adequate guide to the future. Just because Florida was the deciding factor for the last couple of elections doesn't mean that it always will be; presidential elections come along far too seldom for us to know where the battles will be.

These maps show that there is a road to Democratic victory that doesn't require winning the rust-belt interests of Ohioans or the Cuban and New York expat votes in Florida. (The overemphasis on placating Floridians has led to some of the stupidest politics in this country, including our inability to move forward with a new policy toward Cuba, and the Schiavo mess which was basically a local story played on the national stage due to the perception that Florida is a must-win state.)

The Clinton-McCain map also suggests a possible road to victory for McCain, especially if Clinton takes the nomination in a manner that alienates would-be Democratic voters. If McCain wins the Northwest and the other states suggested by this poll, he only needs another 8 votes to flip it for the win. (Considering how close New Mexico and Pennsylvania are, and considering that FL and Ohio aren't sure things, this is possible if not entirely likely.) That isn't to say that Obama would be a sure thing (look to the margins in North Dakota, VA, and NH). But it does look like McCain makes Clinton fight to keep some traditionally Democratic states, whereas Obama makes McCain fight to keep some states that Republicans have long taken for granted.

(Including, by the way, Texas, which the poll shows McCain winning by a single percentage point against Obama versus 7 points against Clinton. And I gotta say, as a symbolic victory would there be any more potent condemnation of Bush than for the Dems to come to power riding on a victory in the former president's home state? Oh how I want it.)

Posted by Exile in West Seattle | March 8, 2008 11:52 AM
27

Um, also, re: Texas... isn't Hillary supposed to deliver the Hispanic voters to the Dems? Because if so why the heck is it Obama who puts Texas into play for us?

Posted by Exile in West Seattle | March 8, 2008 12:13 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).