Hillary is out front in Texas and Ohio

[RiversideGator]

Dont believe me?  Here is an article on the subject:

March 06, 2008
Sorry to Say, Race Is Still a Factor in Democratic Contest
By Mort Kondracke

A week ago, a major Ohio political leader told me: "Obama will never carry Ohio. Some people call it the Bradley effect, but how do you think the guys who work at the GM plant in Youngstown are going to vote? For a black? I don't think so."

I didn't believe it, but sure enough, race -- nearly a forgotten factor in the Democratic presidential contest during Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) long run of primary victories -- evidently came back to help Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) win Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday.

And, unfortunately, it could be a factor again in Pennsylvania and -- if Obama survives Clinton's renewed onslaught to win the Democratic nomination -- in the general election.

The "Bradley effect" -- the tendency of voters to tell pollsters they'll vote for an African-American candidate, then vote against him in the booth -- certainly was evident in Ohio and Texas. Clinton out-performed pre-election polls by three points in Ohio, 1.5 in Texas and 8.3 in Rhode Island.

Moreover, exit polls in Ohio showed that fully 20 percent of primary voters acknowledged that "the race of the candidate" was "important" in deciding their vote. And Clinton won this group by a big margin -- 59 percent to 39 percent.

Clearly, this represents white prejudice against Obama because he is an African-American and not the racial solidarity that regularly wins him 90 percent of the African-American vote.

It was the Ohio equivalent of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's observation in early February that, "you've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

The Clinton campaign didn't overtly stir up racial animosity in Ohio or Texas. It didn't have to.

Rather, the Democratic contest was "racialized" back in January, when Sen. Clinton compared Obama to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and herself to President Lyndon Johnson, and when her husband, Bill, likened Obama's South Carolina primary victory to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's.

Before that, Obama was seeking to run as a "post-racial" candidate -- the political equivalent of Tiger Woods.

Ever since the Clintons elevated the racial issue, however, blacks have been lining up strongly behind Obama and whites, to varying degrees, behind Clinton.

To be sure, Obama has been able to carry white males in many states, including working-class white males in some, enabling him to win 12 straight contests after Super Tuesday and amass a delegate lead over Clinton -- perhaps an insurmountable one.

But the brilliant elections analyst Jay Cost, blogging for RealClearPolitics.com, has developed a convincing theory about the Democratic racial factor: Obama wins in states with majority-black Democratic turnout, like South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana and in states with few blacks, like Wisconsin, Washington and Vermont.

He also has won in states with mixed populations where white family income is high, such as Maryland and Virginia.

But Clinton, Cost contends, wins in states where blacks constitute a major minority, but where average white income is lower, such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Ohio.

So, in largely white Wisconsin, Obama carried white males by a margin of 63 percent to 34 percent. But in Ohio, Clinton won, 58 percent to 39 percent.

And, Clinton has been winning in states with a large Hispanic population, like California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Hispanics and African-Americans often regard themselves as rivals for jobs, advancement and the status as America's foremost minority.

In Texas, Latinos, 34 percent of the electorate, supported Clinton by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent. Nineteen percent of voters said that a candidate's race was an important factor, and Clinton carried this group by 52 percent to 47 percent.

In Rhode Island, another heavily working-class state, race was important to 20 percent of the electorate, and this group went 56 percent for Clinton.

Of course, many other factors besides race were involved in Clinton's victories. White female solidarity was key. "NAFTA-gate," raising questions about Obama's sincerity on trade, was important in Ohio.

Also, media scrutiny of Obama ramped up after a "Saturday Night Live" skit lampooned its previous soft treatment. And Clinton's "red phone" TV ad, questioning whether Obama has the experience to handle an international crisis, may have changed minds in Texas.

But race is a factor, and is likely to remain one, aiding Clinton in Pennsylvania and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in November, if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

McCain is too decent ever to raise the issue and the Republican National Committee is unlikely to repeat its counterproductive effort to race-bait former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D) in Tennessee last year.

But if bottom-dwelling slugs are willing to send out Internet messages lying about Obama's religion, there's probably nothing they won't stoop to.
Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill since 1955. © 2007 Roll Call, Inc.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/sorry_to_say_race_is_still_a_f.html

[RiversideGator]

And another:

March 06, 2008
Tough Math on the Democratic Side
By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton is not the only Democrat with a math problem. But the arithmetical difficulty that Barack Obama faces is fundamentally different from Clinton's: She doesn't have the numbers that plot a clear path to the nomination. He doesn't have the numbers that plot a clear path to a Democratic victory in the fall.

The spin-of-the-day from the Obama campaign on the morning after Clinton's victories in three of the four states holding primaries on Tuesday is that the New York senator cannot possibly overtake her rival's lead in "pledged" delegates -- that is, those won in primaries and caucuses -- and therefore has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

The arithmetic conveniently leaves out an essential part of the equation: Neither Obama nor Clinton can secure through the primaries and caucuses the 2,025 delegates necessary to win at the Denver convention without the votes of the superdelegates. And Clinton's stunning performance on Tuesday, particularly in Ohio, makes Obama's argument that superdelegates should automatically back the will of the voters -- and not use independent political judgment about who can best compete against Republican John McCain in November -- look like an awfully simplistic calculus.

Add up all the states he has won in his historic drive to become the nominee, including all of those small and deeply "red" Republican states where the Obama supporters boast of their candidate's transcendental appeal, and so far Obama has won in places representing 193 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Add up Clinton's victories thus far and she has triumphed in states representing 263 electoral votes.

Of course, some states in Clinton's column -- Texas comes most readily to mind -- that have a large trove of Electoral College votes are highly unlikely to wind up Democratic in the fall. But the same holds true for Obama, whose strength in southern Democratic primaries has rested on the huge margins he has run up among African-American voters. African-Americans are a crucial constituency for Democrats, but their votes in recent contests haven't been enough to win such states as Alabama, South Carolina or Georgia.

In a new memo, Clinton strategists Mark Penn and Harold Ickes point out that the 2004 Democratic nominee, John Kerry, lost these states and several others in which Obama has won primaries by 15 points or more. In Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kansas and Alaska -- all states the Obama forces point to with pride as evidence of an emerging "50-state strategy" -- no Democrat has won the general election since 1964.

So how has Obama fared in those states that are the crucial building blocks of a Democratic general election strategy? He's won his home state of Illinois, plus Wisconsin, Washington and Minnesota. Together, these states account for 51 electoral votes. Clinton has won her home state of New York, as well as California, New Jersey and Michigan, representing a total of 118 electoral votes. This sum deliberately leaves out Ohio and Florida, which will be hotly contested in the fall.

There is a reason some states are called general election "battlegrounds." It is because partisan identification is roughly even, or because certain groups in the electorate, such as Catholics, Hispanics or blue-collar whites, switch their allegiances -- or split their votes. That's why Clinton made so much in her victory speech about the "bellwether" nature of Ohio: "It's a battleground state. It's a state that knows how to pick a president. And no candidate in recent history, Democrat or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary," she said.

There is no papering over the depth of the problem Obama faced there. He won only five of the state's 88 counties, an inauspicious foundation for a general election campaign. Clinton trounced him among Catholic voters, 63 percent-36 percent, according to exit polls. She beat him among voters in every income category and bested him by 14 points among those making less than $50,000 annually.

This is why Pennsylvania, which is demographically similar to Ohio -- and a must-win state for Democrats in November -- is considered such fertile ground for Clinton on April 22.

The Democratic Party is indeed developing a general election problem, and it's only partly because Obama and Clinton will be sniping at one another for the next seven weeks. Obama, the leading candidate, still hasn't shown he has appeal in a large battleground state that will be pivotal in the fall. In this sense, Pennsylvania is where Obama's back, and not Clinton's, is up against the wall.
mariecocco@washpost.com

Copyright 2008, Washington Post Writers Group

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/tough_math_on_the_democratic_s.html

[RiversideGator]

And yet another:

March 07, 2008
Obama is Weak in Key Gen. Election States
By Steven Stark

Two weeks ago we noted that, in spite of all the press hype promoting Barack Obama, the Democrats were only two steps away from chaos in their nomination process.

Now make that one step.

An Obama sweep this past Tuesday was probably never in the cards, given Hillary Clinton's strength among working-class voters and Hispanics, which she's had virtually all along. But a Clinton sweep of Texas and Ohio is something the media did not prepare for, as they ignored the evidence staring them in the face and essentially drove Obama around the track for a victory lap before the race had ever taken place.

Now the party has a huge problem. Sure, Obama has a narrow lead among elected delegates -- a margin he's likely to hold after the run of primaries ends in June. And, on paper, he's still the current favorite to win the nomination in August.

But if Obama emerges as the nominee, it's now clear his campaign is headed into the autumn homestretch with some enormous holes.

Foremost among them is that Obama has yet to win a major state other than his own (Illinois) because he's still having trouble appealing to both Hispanics and working-class Democrats --those so-called Reagan Democrats. As early as this past November, the Pew Forum was picking up signs in its polls that Obama was running significantly worse among Catholics than he was among virtually any other demographic group in the electorate.

That's still true. Unfortunately for Obama, Hispanics and working-class voters are two groups with some affinity for John McCain. In recent head-to-head polls, for example, McCain handily beat Obama by double digits in Florida -- a state once considered a key toss-up. In another poll, the presumed GOP nominee is slightly ahead of Obama in New Jersey, a blue state in which John Kerry defeated George Bush by seven percentage points in 2004.

Color by numbers

These are worrying signs for the Democrats, should Obama be the nominee, especially now that it appears the Obama-Clinton contest could drag on for months, further weakening whoever emerges as the Democratic candidate. Michael Barone, the ace principal author of The Almanac of American Politics, recently wrote that an Obama-McCain race would redraw the red-state-blue-state map of the past few elections. But a more accurate analysis is that while McCain would be competitive in many states -- even California -- once considered safely Democratic, it's hard to see as many comparable states where Obama might do the same.

In addition to California, McCain has a reasonable shot at winning blue states Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and maybe even Wisconsin and Michigan, not to mention the key swing state of Ohio. Obama, on the other hand, has a shot at red states New Mexico, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia. McCain has the better hand to play.

This general-election weakness for Obama is sure to be an argument pressed by the Clinton forces in the days ahead. True, she probably wouldn't have a chance in any of the red states that Obama might contest, either. But in her favor is the fact that, while her appeal to Independents is limited, she'd be far likelier to run stronger against McCain in Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California.

The obvious problem now is that the longer the two front-runners engage each other, the less time either has to shore up weaknesses before the fall campaign. With the news that Florida governor Charlie Crist will consider allowing Democrats to restage their primary, this is now a process that could go into July without a clear winner. The few upcoming large states -- Pennsylvania and, now, maybe Florida -- favor Clinton. The longer Obama remains subject to attack by his opponent and a press anxious to repent (once again) for having gotten it all wrong, the weaker he will become. And once the primaries end, no one will have a clear majority, meaning there could well be a fierce contest for the superdelegates, triggering a contentious party civil war. McCain is thanking his lucky stars.

Boston Phoenix

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obama_is_weak_in_key_general_e.html

[RiversideGator]

I think that, if Obama wins the nomination, McCain will win the general election in a 1988 style near landslide (when Bush I handily defeated Dukakis and carried states like California and New Jersey).  If Hillary wins, I think it is more like the 2000 election with Hillary perhaps coming out on top.  Again, there is no way to know.  BTW vic, polls in August, 1988 showed Dukakis leading Bush by double digits.  That didnt turn out too well for the man in the tank, now did it?   

[vicupstate]

I think that, if Obama wins the nomination, McCain will win the general election in a 1988 style near landslide (when Bush I handily defeated Dukakis and carried states like California and New Jersey).  If Hillary wins, I think it is more like the 2000 election with Hillary perhaps coming out on top.  Again, there is no way to know.  BTW vic, polls in August, 1988 showed Dukakis leading Bush by double digits.  That didnt turn out too well for the man in the tank, now did it?   

There is no way to know what will happen in November, because there are too many variables and anything can happen.  Clearly, if the election were today, McCain would lose against either candidate.    But who knows, maybe the recession will HELP McCain.


More to come....
 
 

[RiversideGator]

And yet another article making the similar points:

Downside of Obama Strategy
Losses in Big States Spur General-Election Fears

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 8, 2008; Page A01

Democrats in Wyoming will hold caucuses today and -- following what is now a familiar pattern -- are expected to give Sen. Barack Obama the majority of their 12 pledged delegates.

The Illinois Democrat's strength in a Republican state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 is the latest example of an ingenious strategy that neatly addresses the advantage Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) enjoys in Democratic strongholds where she and her husband have long-standing ties.

But Obama's losses Tuesday in Texas and Ohio -- coupled with his Feb. 5 defeats in California, New York and New Jersey -- have not only shown the strategy's downside. They have also given supporters of Clinton an opening for an argument that winning over affluent, educated white voters in small Democratic enclaves, such as Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, and running up the score with African Americans in the Republican South exaggerate his strengths in states that will not vote Democratic in the fall.

If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee but cannot win support from working-class whites and Hispanics, they argue, then Democrats will not retake the White House in November. "If you can't win in the Southwest, if you don't win Ohio, if you don't win Pennsylvania, you've got problems in November," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter.

Even some Obama advisers see a real problem. "Ultimately, all that matters is how the nominee stacks up against John McCain," said one adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to the senator from Arizona and presumptive GOP nominee. "Right now, Barack is not connecting with the children of the Reagan Democrats. That's a real concern."

"It's now a battle between the base and the new young Democrats and Democrats who are more energized than they've been in the past," agreed Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), an Obama supporter. "I don't know how that's going to play out."

With the campaign moving next week to Mississippi, another Republican state where Obama is expected to do well, these questions will only grow louder as the Clinton camp tries to minimize the importance of those states while raising the stakes for Pennsylvania on April 22.

Obama and his allies counter that California and New York are firmly in the Democratic column and that, as the party's nominee, he could carry them just as easily as Clinton.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said he is not going to be goaded into shifting from the current strategy, which is to get as many delegates from wherever he can. And he rejects what he says is the Clinton campaign's attempt to give greater legitimacy to certain states -- especially Pennsylvania, where Clinton is expected to have an advantage because of her support from the Democratic establishment there and because its demographics are similar to Ohio's.

But many Democratic elected officials are worried. "No one's jumping up and down in Okeechobee, Florida, saying we've got a perfect ticket," agreed Rep. Tim Mahoney (Fla.), a moderate, unaffiliated Democrat in a swing district. "If you're a Barack Obama, you're going to have to figure out how to reach out to white, middle-aged men."

Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who like Mahoney has not endorsed either Obama or Clinton, is concerned about Obama's poor performance among Latino voters in California and Texas. "It's unfortunate," he said, "because Barack Obama has done very well with Latino voters in Illinois, and I know his heart, and it's for an inclusive agenda."

Obama rejects the charge that he has failed to reach important segments of the party, noting that he has shown he can crack Clinton's coalition of working-class voters, women and Latinos with his wins in the bellwether state of Missouri, the swing state of Virginia and the Rust Belt redoubt of Wisconsin. He also showed that he can expand the battleground into the coveted Mountain West, with his convincing win in Colorado.

"I don't buy into this demographic argument," Obama said. "Missouri, Wisconsin, Virginia -- in many of these states we've won the white vote and the blue-collar vote and so forth. I think it is very important not to somehow focus on a handful of states because the Clintons say those states are important and that the other states are unimportant."

To be sure, Team Obama's small-state strategy may have been the candidate's only option against a far-better-known opponent, and it has worked. In the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests that Obama's campaign staff had hoped to merely survive, Obama and Clinton just about broke even. He won more delegates in Kansas and Idaho than she won in New Jersey. Her big win in California -- with its net gain of 41 delegates -- was negated by his wins in Georgia and Nebraska.

"Senator Obama went where he had to go," said former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack (D), a Clinton backer. "They had a well-thought-out strategic plan, and they carried it out with real discipline."

In the ensuing weeks, Obama appeared to consolidate his support among the rest of the Democratic coalition. He prevailed in the diverse state of Missouri, won over rural and working-class whites in his Virginia and Maryland routs, and then prevailed easily in Wisconsin.

David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, said the strategy had an upside beyond the compiling of delegates. Obama was building a case with superdelegates that his appeal to nontraditional voters would have a ripple effect down the ballot in swing states such as Colorado and Iowa, where some of those superdelegates will be running for reelection. And by building organizations in all 50 states, Obama can make the case that he has an infrastructure primed and ready for the general election.

Then came Ohio and Texas, and all the old fears of Obama's narrow appeal came flooding back.

"A lot of the states he's winning are states that we're not going to win in November," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter. "It's not a strategy that bodes well, in my opinion."

A Clinton campaign memo on Wednesday noted that of the 11 core Republican states that have held primaries or caucuses, Obama has won 10: Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana. In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic nominee, lost each of these states by 15 points or more.

Obama aides still insist that it is a strategy that will work. Even after Tuesday, when he lost three out of four contests, Obama maintained his delegate lead. Indeed, his strength in the parallel caucuses in Texas may have actually given him more delegates than Clinton, even though she won the popular vote by 51 percent to 47 percent. But his campaign faces a legitimacy test that is beginning to resonate throughout the Democratic establishment: Can Obama win the big prizes?

With Pennsylvania looming, Obama has few good options. Some advisers say he should stick to a plan, hatched before Tuesday's defeats, to spend some time in the next weeks traveling to Europe, Israel and Asia to bolster his credentials for the general election. But if he cedes the state completely, he destroys his strategy of winning big in the small states and staying close in the big ones.

Axelrod and other Obama aides said they have learned their lesson from Tuesday. Rather than accept Pennsylvania as a tiebreaker, they will play down their chances there and keep the focus on states such as North Carolina and Indiana, where they think their chances are better.

Pennsylvania's primary will be followed by contests in West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky, all of which have similar, lunch-pail demographics. If Clinton enters the summer on a roll, especially in the big states, the superdelegates may no longer feel that backing her would be opposing the will of the voters, an Obama supporter said.

"Superdelegates are politicians. They will not buck the will of the voters," said a superdelegate supporting Obama. "The danger point comes if the superdelegates don't see a vote for Clinton as bucking anyone."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030703318_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008030800051

[Midway ®]

I think that, if Obama wins the nomination, McCain will win the general election in a 1988 style near landslide (when Bush I handily defeated Dukakis and carried states like California and New Jersey).  If Hillary wins, I think it is more like the 2000 election with Hillary perhaps coming out on top.  Again, there is no way to know.  BTW vic, polls in August, 1988 showed Dukakis leading Bush by double digits.  That didnt turn out too well for the man in the tank, now did it?   

What a laughably preposterous construct it is to make comparisons between Dukakis and Obama in terms of their "Q".

Don't misunderstand me, I mean that only on the most outward and superficial level, which is the basis of decision for most voters.

[gatorback]

Nobody ever won the presidency without winning Ohio.  She's finally got her voice. She's got a stuggle to catch up in delegates, but wow...let's watch the war as we go forward. 

[vicupstate]

A week ago, a major Ohio political leader told me: "Obama will never carry Ohio. Some people call it the Bradley effect, but how do you think the guys who work at the GM plant in Youngstown are going to vote? For a black? I don't think so."

I guess the guys that work at the GM plant don’t have any qualms about voting for a woman though- right?  The reasons HRC won Ohio are listed in detail at the bottom.  HRC won Ohio and Texas because she raised sufficient doubts about Obama’s READINESS to be President, and that he had not been fully vetted and was therefore too risky. It wasn’t based on his race.

I didn't believe it, but sure enough, race -- nearly a forgotten factor in the Democratic presidential contest during Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) long run of primary victories -- evidently came back to help Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) win Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island on Tuesday.

And, unfortunately, it could be a factor again in Pennsylvania and -- if Obama survives Clinton's renewed onslaught to win the Democratic nomination -- in the general election.

The "Bradley effect" -- the tendency of voters to tell pollsters they'll vote for an African-American candidate, then vote against him in the booth -- certainly was evident in Ohio and Texas. Clinton out-performed pre-election polls by three points in Ohio, 1.5 in Texas and 8.3 in Rhode Island.

The Bradley effect is based on their being a significant DIFFERENCE between what the polls showed, and the actual result.  HRC received 3.5% more in Ohio and 1.8% more in Texas than the Real Clear Politics average of the polls.  Any poll has a margin of error of 4-5%, so the polls actually got it right.   As for Rhode Island, it will vote Democrat regardless.  Also there were only three polls taken in R.I. (compared to seven in Ohio and Texas), one has a sample of over 1,000 and was within three points of the actual result.  The other two had a sample of around 400, which means the margin of error is much higher. 

Moreover, exit polls in Ohio showed that fully 20 percent of primary voters acknowledged that "the race of the candidate" was "important" in deciding their vote. And Clinton won this group by a big margin -- 59 percent to 39 percent.

Clearly, this represents white prejudice against Obama because he is an African-American and not the racial solidarity that regularly wins him 90 percent of the African-American vote.

It was the Ohio equivalent of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's observation in early February that, "you've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

The Clinton campaign didn't overtly stir up racial animosity in Ohio or Texas. It didn't have to.

Rather, the Democratic contest was "racialized" back in January, when Sen. Clinton compared Obama to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and herself to President Lyndon Johnson, and when her husband, Bill, likened Obama's South Carolina primary victory to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's.

Both of these states have demographics (lower income union members in Ohio, Hispanics in Texas) that Clinton has done the best with since the very beginning of the campaign. She never trailed in Ohio, and if Obama had gotten three points more in Texas, he would be the defacto nominee now. 

Before that, Obama was seeking to run as a "post-racial" candidate -- the political equivalent of Tiger Woods.

Ever since the Clintons elevated the racial issue, however, blacks have been lining up strongly behind Obama and whites, to varying degrees, behind Clinton.

To be sure, Obama has been able to carry white males in many states, including working-class white males in some, enabling him to win 12 straight contests after Super Tuesday and amass a delegate lead over Clinton -- perhaps an insurmountable one.

But the brilliant elections analyst Jay Cost, blogging for RealClearPolitics.com, has developed a convincing theory about the Democratic racial factor: Obama wins in states with majority-black Democratic turnout, like South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana and in states with few blacks, like Wisconsin, Washington and Vermont.

He also has won in states with mixed populations where white family income is high, such as Maryland and Virginia.

But Clinton, Cost contends, wins in states where blacks constitute a major minority, but where average white income is lower, such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Ohio.

I guess the fact that HRC’s New York borders NJ and Mass. had nothing to do with her winning there?  NJ has the highest per capita income in the nation â€" so how is average white income considered ‘low’?  The poll average and the actual result in Tennesee matched almost exactly â€" you can’t claim Bradley effect there.   Ohio â€" see above.

So, in largely white Wisconsin, Obama carried white males by a margin of 63 percent to 34 percent. But in Ohio, Clinton won, 58 percent to 39 percent.

And, Clinton has been winning in states with a large Hispanic population, like California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Hispanics and African-Americans often regard themselves as rivals for jobs, advancement and the status as America's foremost minority.

In Texas, Latinos, 34 percent of the electorate, supported Clinton by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent. Nineteen percent of voters said that a candidate's race was an important factor, and Clinton carried this group by 52 percent to 47 percent.

Obama has difficulty with Hispanics, and has since the beginning.  Will they vote Republican, with its anti-immigration stance?  I seriously doubt it.  They may prefer Clinton, but that doesn’t mean they will go to the other side in the general. 

In Rhode Island, another heavily working-class state, race was important to 20 percent of the electorate, and this group went 56 percent for Clinton.

The state as a whole went 58% for Clinton, so Obama actually did BETTER among those that found race important.

Of course, many other factors besides race were involved in Clinton's victories. White female solidarity was key. "NAFTA-gate," raising questions about Obama's sincerity on trade, was important in Ohio.

Also, media scrutiny of Obama ramped up after a "Saturday Night Live" skit lampooned its previous soft treatment. And Clinton's "red phone" TV ad, questioning whether Obama has the experience to handle an international crisis, may have changed minds in Texas.

Yesâ€"this is why he lost.  I think he contributed in his own way by expecting his momentum, and 2-1 advantage on the airwaves, would get him to the finish line. 

But race is a factor, and is likely to remain one, aiding Clinton in Pennsylvania and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in November, if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

McCain is too decent ever to raise the issue and the Republican National Committee is unlikely to repeat its counterproductive effort to race-bait former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D) in Tennessee last year.

The 2006 senate race in Tennessee is an example that “Bradley effect’, a phenomenon observed in the ‘80’s, is no longer a significant factor.  Ford’s poll numbers matched his actual vote.     

But if bottom-dwelling slugs are willing to send out Internet messages lying about Obama's religion, there's probably nothing they won't stoop to.

Race baiting can backfire, and I think it WILL backfire if it can be linked to the GOP or McCain in an official capacity.  GOP polling confirms this.


The bottomline is that the 'Bradley effect' has not been demostrated in the primaries.  The race for the Democratic nomination is NOT over.  It has been back and forth several times and could still swing again. Exit polling shows Obama is viewed favorably by the Democratic electorate, and just because a primary voter supported his opponent, doesn't mean that person will vote Republican.  No more than a Huckabee or Romney voter will vote Democrat.

The pundits told us 'Clinton will take the nomination by coronation',  then after Iowa, it was Obama couldn't be stopped. Then after New Hampshire, they told us Iowa was just an aberration, and Clinton was back on track. After Obama won 12 straight, he was back to unstoppable. Now, Obama can't win even though he leads in delegates, votes and states.  I'm not betting that the last twist isn't still ahead. 

BTW, by Calendar days the primary season is less than ONE-HALF complete. 

[vicupstate]

Another point of view:

March 09, 2008
It's Still Over For Hillary

By Dick Morris

The real message of Tuesday's primaries is not that Hillary won. It's that she didn't win by enough.

The race is over.

The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party's chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.

John McCain's nomination guarantees that the superdelegates wouldn't dare. A perfectly acceptable alternative for most Democrats, McCain would harvest so large a proportion of Obama's votes if Hillary steals the nomination that he would probably win. Even putting Obama on the ticket would not allay the anger of his supporters; it would just make him complicit in the robbery.

Will Hillary win Pennsylvania? Who cares? Even if she were to sweep the remaining primaries and caucuses by 10 points, she would move just 60 votes closer to Obama's total of elected delegates. And she won't sweep them all. Even if Hillary wins Pennsylvania, the largest prize up for grabs, Obama will probably win North Carolina, which is almost as large. He's likely to win Mississippi and Wyoming and has a good shot in Oregon and Indiana. The most likely result of these coming contests is that Obama will be roughly where he is now, about 140 elected delegates ahead of Hillary.

Suppose that Hillary will carry those states by enough to offset Obama's delegate lead. The proportional representation system makes a knockout impossible and so mutes relatively narrow victories as to make them almost inconsequential. Little Vermont, with 600,000 people, gave Obama a net gain of four delegates, half of what Hillary won from the Texas primary, a state with 20 million residents. Even after Hillary won big-state victories in Ohio and Texas, she drew only 20 closer to Obama's total of elected delegates.

Hillary won't withdraw. That much is for sure. The tantalizing notion that 800 insiders can offset a season of primaries and caucuses will drive both Clintons to ever-escalating rhetoric. Will their attacks hurt Obama? Likely all they will achieve is to give him needed experience in the cut and thrust of media politics.

Left out of the entire equation is poor John McCain. Unable to get a word in edgewise and unsure of which Democrat to attack, he will have to watch from the sidelines as Hillary and Obama hog the headlines. If the superdelegates deliver the nomination to Hillary in the dead of night without leaving fingerprints at the crime scene, McCain's nomination will be worth having. If Obama prevails, it won't be worth the paper on which it is written. The giant killer, Obama will have soared to new heights of popularity and McCain won't be able to bring him back to Earth in the nine weeks that will remain.

Suggestion for Obama:

The next time Hillary uses the recycled red phone ad, counter with one of your own. When the phone rings in the middle of the night, have a woman's voice, with a flat Midwestern accent, answer it and say, "Hold on" into the receiver. Then she should shout, "Bill! It's for you!"

Because with Hillary's complete lack of any meaningful experience in foreign affairs, and her lack of the "testing" that she boldly claims, she'll be yelling for Bill.


Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of “Outrage.” To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to www.dickmorris.com.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/its_still_over_for_hillary.html at March 09, 2008 - 05:51

[vicupstate]

On Saturday there was a special election for the House seat of Republican Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House, who resigned recently. 

The Democrat won, becoming the first Democrat elected from this district since 1974.  The district voted for Bush with 55% in 2004 and is contains the birthplace of Ronald Reagan.   It is a suburban and rural district with less than 5% black population.  The respected and non-partisan Congressional Quarterly ranks the district as "Safe Republican". 

Obama cut a commercial and campaigned for the Democrat, and McCain (as well as Hastert) campaigned for the Republican.  Granted this is his home state, but it shows the potential for Obama to 'change the math' in previously GOP strongholds.  Me thinks this gives certain Republicans night sweats.  Thus, they pray for the divisive Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic standard bearer in November. 


P.S. As a member of Congress, the winner will become a Super delegate, so Obama picks up one more.

[gatorback]

vicup:  Certain Rupublicans sweat becuase they don't want to be found out as backing OIL:
Operation Iraqi Liberation.  Do the right thing get the "fiscal" conservative out of office.

[JeffreyS]

He's leaving.