Hillary’s Last Hurrah

[Dr Ron]

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3276

Hillary’s Last Hurrah



May 14th, 2008 by Ron Chusid

As widely expected, the Hillbillies for Hillary gave Clinton her last hurrah in West Virginia. She’ll win again in Kentucky, but the win will be offset by victory for Obama in Oregon where Clinton is far behind in the polls, including among women. She is also favored in Puerto Rico, but by that time she will be even further behind with no chance at a comeback.

Clinton, often looking back at the past as opposed to towards the future, is fond of citing historical precedents in elections. Matthew Yglesias helps debunk the importance of West Virginia:

As the Clinton campaign sagely points out “no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916″ and therefore Obama’s primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can’t possible win the election.

What’s even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America. The outlook, in short, is very grim.

Fortunately Obama brings many states much larger than West Virginia into play.

Undoubtedly the Clinton camp will spin this as evidence that Obama cannot win the votes of the working class. The real difference is type of working voters. Clinton has consistently out performed Obama in Appalachia. One in four Clinton voters admitted that race was a factor in their vote. Trends in southern states from before the Civil Rights Act was enacted provide little predictive value today.

ABC News took a closer look at the numbers with regards to Obama and working class whites. They do note that “Whites who don’t have a college degree have voted for Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin.” However primaries and general elections are two different things. In a general election campaign, Clinton would be hampered by her poor support among educated whites:

Obama, with his upscale appeal, does better among better-educated whites: McCain’s just +3 vs. Obama, compared with McCain’s 12-point advantage against Clinton among college-educated whites. That accounts for Obama’s better showing against McCain overall, 51-44 percent in our poll, vs. 49-46 percent in a Clinton-McCain matchup.

The differences are partially geographical, with Obama doing better among working class whites once you get away from Appalachia. ABC notes that, “Obama won less-educated whites in the Vermont and Wisconsin primaries, was +2 in Utah and came within 4 points in his home state of Illinois (although in each he again did better with upscale whites).” Obama also does better among working class whites than John Kerry and Al Gore did. ABC reports, “they lost working-class whites to George W. Bush by 24 points and 17 points, respectively.”

If we look ahead to a general election campaign, there is plenty of reason to believe that Obama can improve his support among working class whites. Many who voted for Clinton as their first choice will vote for Obama over John McCain. Obama also does better in states the more they are exposed to him. I’ve already noted two states, New Jersey and California, where Clinton won the primary but Obama now leads Clinton in the polls. In contrast, the affluent, educated, socially liberal independents who Obama brought into the party but Clinton supporters disparage as “elites” are not likely to vote for Hillary Clinton.

[Heather MC]

1. Hillary vows to keep running!!!

[Dr Ron]

2. It will never happen

She'd like to, but by the time Obama is in the White House, Hillary will have long run out of money to keep her campaign alive.

Incidentally I received one comment at Liberal Values today from a Clinton supporter who was urging Clinton to run as a third party candidate assuming Obama wins the nomination, to help McCain as opposed to Obama win the general election.

(I've kept the comment in moderation for now. The person had four comments and if I put them through it would change the thread from a nice friendly talk by Obama supporters to a nice friendly talk by Obama supporters repeatedly interrupted by a kook. Besides, we can't blame Clinton for what her nuttier supporter say.)

[Citizen_Penn]

3. Can't you block Bill from posting?

[Dr Ron]

4. Can block anyone from getting comments through

Regardless of whether these comments are from Bill (doubtful) or just another nutty Clinton supporter, any comments can be blocked.

In this case, besides advocating voting for McCain over Obama, the person was accusing Obama of being un-American and of being a racist who hates whites. Making it worse, there were four comments saying the same thing posted to the same thread.

On top of all this, I got another message from an idiot who who signed their comment "DU mole" who saw the comment here and got indignant (including swearing twice) that all such comments are not being put through. That's someone else whose comments will remain blocked. With nuts like this roaming the internet (including reading here) it is easy to see why some blogs have stopped allowing comments and all blogs with any meaningful traffic must moderate comments.

[KSinTX]

6. That's a hoot!!

:rofl:

[marlakay]

5. just talked to someone in kentucky

and he says most of loisville is for obama...it has to do with the war.