Obama Gains, But Still Lags In Big States

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Obama Gains, But Still Lags In Big States
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and AMY CHOZICK
January 28, 2008

Barack Obama's overwhelming weekend victory in South Carolina's Democratic primary gives him new momentum in the run-up to the near-national nominating contest a week from tomorrow, known as Super Tuesday. But Mr. Obama heads into the 22-state showdown as the underdog. The Illinois senator trails Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by large margins in polls in most of the big states voting Feb. 5. And he lacks the time or resources to campaign intensively in many of those far-flung races to close the gaps.

(snip)

Today, Mr. Obama is likely to get a fresh boost. One of the Democratic Party's icons, senior Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, is expected to offer his endorsement, joining his niece -- Caroline Kennedy, daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy -- and adding to the JFK aura that has lifted Mr. Obama's presidential bid. But for all of the attention Mr. Obama has garnered since his Iowa caucus victory at the beginning of the month, Mrs. Clinton has maintained her big lead in national polls -- and in polls in the big states with delegate prizes far greater than any state that has voted so far. Among the major Super Tuesday contests, Mrs. Clinton has wide -- in some cases double-digit -- polling leads in California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Missouri and Alabama. Mr. Obama leads in his home state of Illinois and in Georgia. The demographics in many of those states also seem to play more to Mrs. Clinton's strengths, with big populations of Latinos and white women, groups that helped carry her to victory over Mr. Obama in New Hampshire and Nevada.

(snip)

The sheer diversity of the states in play -- racially, regionally, geographically -- means that no candidate will have the cash or the leisure to engage in anything approaching the old-fashioned whistle-stop campaigning that has defined the races in most states so far. Mr. Obama had more than three weeks to build on his Iowa victory to chip away at Mrs. Clinton's lead in South Carolina and ultimately to overwhelm her. That will be much harder over the coming week... Looking for some fresh momentum of her own, Mrs. Clinton has started calling attention to the largely ignored Democratic vote tomorrow in Florida, a state where a recent poll gave her a 48% to 28% edge. All the Democratic candidates have pledged not to campaign in Florida, which was stripped of all its delegates by the Democratic National Committee as punishment for moving its primary into January. Though the party forbade candidates from staging rallies there, it is allowing fund-raising visits; Mrs. Clinton has three scheduled today, in Sarasota and Miami. And she now plans to visit Florida after the polls close tomorrow night to "thank her supporters."

(snip)

But the Democrats are already fully focused on Feb. 5 -- and neither of the two leaders is giving up any demographic. Yesterday, Mr. Obama said he would travel to one Super Tuesday state, Kansas, which has a relatively small African-American population, to campaign in his white grandfather's hometown. Mrs. Clinton left South Carolina moments after the polls closed, spending yesterday in Tennessee, where a week-old poll gives her a 14-point lead. One stop: Memphis, where much of the state's black population is centered. About 16% of the state's citizens are black.

(snip)

Statewide polls are often unreliable. And because it's expensive to poll, they often fail to come out frequently enough to reflect changing voter sentiment on the ground. A poll in Massachusetts conducted Wednesday gave Mrs. Clinton 59% of the vote -- a nearly 3-to-1 edge over Mr. Obama. But the Kennedy endorsement could carry substantial clout with Massachusetts voters. And Mr. Obama has the backing of the state's other senator, John Kerry, as well as Gov. Deval Patrick.

(snip)



URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120148052255320955.html (subscription)

[skipos]

1. If the Clintons get to many of those states in time, they can get the results they got in SC

There is still time if they work fast.

[still_one]

4. What Hillary's campaign has shown, is that Bill Clinton is a very real problem

I know many think that Bill Clinton is the next best thing to sliced bread, but if Hillary gets the nomination, and Bill Clinton continues to assume such an active roll campaigning, the issues will NOT be discussed, because Bill Clinton will become the issue, and that cannot be good

[still_one]

2. All these articles seem to ignore the fact that we may have a brokered convention

no candidate may get enough delegates for a win by the time the convention arives

[question everything]

5. I would not mind extending the primary season

to let as many voters decide.

Previously it was over after Iowa and New Hampshire - two small states that do not represent the average voter. This is why so many rushed to the front.

So why not drag it to, say, May 6, to let the voters of Texas and Ohio, Vermont and Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Oregon and Kentucky as well as Virginia and North Carolina, have a say?

[still_one]

6. I have no problem with your proposal /nt

[FrenchieCat]

3. Give him another 5 minutes.....Article written on Sunday after a Saturday night result!

Those folks sure are impatient! :rofl:

[Beacool]

7. Let me put it succinctly:

SC results mean little in northern states such as PA, CT, NJ & NY.

The media had taken care to inform the public ad nauseum that Obama would win in SC and had the majority of the black vote. Therefore, it won't alter the final results in these states. If out of his votes he had won more whites than blacks people would have taken more notice, but winning 75%of the black vote and 25% of the white vote means that up here we can't relate to his win in the south. In NJ, he will probably win Jersey City and maybe Hoboken (yuppies love him), but will lose the rest of Hudson County and the state. In NY he'll do OK in NYC, but Hillary will win it hands down. In PA he'll do fairly well in Philly but not so much in the rest of the state. In CT, I'm not familiar with their demographics, but she's polling pretty well in that state.

[question everything]

9. But how much weight to the big cities, like NYC

or Philadelphia have?

For example, in California, the Democratic majority is along a very narrow strip along the coast - LA and San Francisco and, I think, around Mendocino. The rest of the state - the Inland Valley and the desert is Republican. But that strip has so many more people, that it established California as a reliable blue state.

[Beacool]

10. They have plenty of pull, but in NJ & NY she has a lot of support

in the urban areas and in Philly too. I think that in the big cities she & Obama will split the vote. I do think though, that she will carry these states by several percentage points.

[ArfDogMNO]

8. I would expect to see any more prominent Democrat

endorsements of Obama spread out over the next week. Gore is one possibility, who else might join in?