May 12 2008
OK, I’m Convinced Obama Is The Next Dukakis
I had not really seen any connection between Sen Obama’s campaign and the disastrous campaign of Governor Michael Dukakis against George Bush Sr in 1988. But that was up until I read Susan Estrich try and make the case Obama is not another Dukakis. Tried and failed, that is. By the time I got through her article she had me convinced Obama was going to be another Dukakis, without a doubt. Seems the Environmental Republican was all over this one a while back.
Soothie,
By “crazy old coot” you have to mean “unpredictable.” This must leave the “Terrorist Lobby” scared spitless.
Whistling past the graveyard with your MSM popular polls?
This proves soothie 100 percent wrong:
Obama, Underperforming Kerry Among White Voters
The Hillary-friendly bloggers at TalkLeft note that “Barack Obama has not gotten more than 40 percent of the white vote since Wisconsin, where he won the white vote.â€
It’s an imperfect comparison to weigh demographics from a primary election against a general election. Still, it would seem hard to imagine a scenario in which Obama gets a larger share of the white vote in the general election than he did in recent Democratic primaries. A not insignificant chunk of the white vote is Republican, and while “Operation Chaos,†a disinterest in the fairly-quickly-settled GOP primary, or genuine Obamacans may have boosted the number of Republicans who voted in this year’s Democratic primaries, the pool of voters who will turn out in November are likely to be whiter and less inclined to vote for Obama than the Democratic primary voter pools.
In other words, if Obama can’t close the deal with white Democrats, it will be an uphill climb to win over white independents and white Republicans.
There will probably be a little more than 32 million votes cast in the Democratic primary this year. The total turnout in 2004 was 122 million Americans, which amounted to 60.7 percent of eligible voters. In other words, there are probably about 90 million Americans who will vote in November who did not vote in this year’s Democratic primary.
(Obama will almost certainly drive up African-American turnout in the general election this year, but the gap between this and other demographics has shrunk significantly. In 2004, 87.4 percent of registered African-Americans cast a ballot in the Presidential election, according to statistics compiled by the US Census Bureau, compared with 89.4 percent turnout among registered, non-Hispanic whites.)
In state after state, Barack Obama is drastically underperforming John Kerry’s general election numbers among whites among a voter pool almost entirely limited to Democrats.
In the Ohio Democratic primary, Barack Obama carried 34 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election, John Kerry carried 44 percent of the white vote.
In Pennsylvania, Obama carried 37 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election, John Kerry carried 45 percent.
In Missouri, Obama won 39 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election, John Kerry carried 42 percent of the white vote.
This phenomenon occurs in states that aren’t seen as teeming with those classic Rust Belt/Midwest demographics. In Connecticut, Obama carried 48 percent of the white vote; John Kerry carried 51 percent.
In New Jersey, Obama carried 31 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election, Kerry carried 46 percent.
In Rhode Island, Obama carried 37 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election Kerry carried 57 percent of the white vote.
In Maryland, Obama carried 42 percent of the white vote; Kerry carried 44 percent in the 2004 general election.
There are a few states where Obama’s primary percentage outpaces Kerry’s general election share. In North Carolina, Obama carried 37 percent of the white vote. In the 2004 general election, John Kerry carried 27 percent. (So much for help from John Edwards.)
In Indiana, Obama carried 40 percent of the white vote; Kerry carried 34 percent.
In New Mexico, Obama carried 55 percent of the white vote, Kerry got 43 percent. (Of course, in that state, Kerry carried 56 percent of the Latino vote (32 percent of the electorate that year), while Obama carried 36 percent of that key demographic in this year’s caucus, according to exit polls.)
But overall, it seems extremely likely that Barack Obama will get a smaller share of the white vote than John Kerry did in 2004 – requiring a huge turnout among other demographics. Some, like African-Americans, have already demonstrated great enthusiasm for Obama. Others, like Latinos…haven’t, at least not yet.
“One candidate is an honors graduate from Columbia and Harvard Law School,”
Soothie, it’s a good thing they(Barack and Michelle) had the advantage of affirmative action, both in getting into these schools and in classroom performance, otherwise you would never have heard of either of them. Just because they got affirmative action grades does not mean they are intelligent. Anybody that gets to start near the top with the benefit of the same affirmative actions, can stay there.
According to this poll, 1 in 5 dems will defect to McCain…
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200805/POL20080512f.html