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Obama Team Responds to ‘5 Myths’

May 13th, 2008
By PETE ABEL, Managing Editor

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Those “myths” include:

- The Primary has left Democrats divided.

- The Primary campaign has hurt Obama with swing voters and Republicans.

- Obama cannot perform strongly enough among white voters.

- The race against Clinton has compromised Obama’s position among women.

- Obama cannot win working class voters.

Details at the RCP blog. Even though these responses come from the Obama camp, some of the data they offer is well worth considering — and vetting, for those who might have an interest in doing so and the time to do it. If you fit in that category, please, share what you learn.

————

Note: In the first line of this post, I placed the term “myths” in quotation marks to (a) identify the term as used by the Obama team, and (b) avoid any judgment on my part re: whether or not these are actually myths. I’m biased enough already (pro-Obama) not to caveat at least some of what I write.



This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Barack Obama. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    I think it's really hard to parse especially at this stage of the game. For instance, I can see why Obama's camp would be pointing out that his numbers regarding Democratic voters likely to cast their ballots for him being close to those that Bill Clinton won with in '96 (81% in current polls matching Obama to McCain, vs. 84% of Dems voting for Bill in '96.) But Bill Clinton won both of his elections with a plurality, not a majority, and it was the drain of third party votes that allowed him to win in that manner. I don't think it's at all clear whether or not that will happen this time (and so it could make a difference whether the 16-19% of Democratic voter ballots are cast for a third party choice or for the Republican candidate.) On the other hand, I think there are more registered Democrats now than there were then, so Obama's 81% may be larger than Bill's 84%, and possibly by a wide enough margin to overcome a potential lack of third party effect.

    The main thing that I think Obama supporters overlook is that it doesn't matter how he's doing in the national polls against McCain because what will matter in Nov is the electoral college. The only way to really examine electability is to look at whether or not it's conceivable that Obama can hold all of the previous blue states and flip one or more of the previous red ones to blue, or alternatively lose some blue states but pick up enough of the previous red ones to make up for that. And since he does show weakness in certain states where McCain is popular, it makes sense to consider that. It is hard to parse, since losing big to Hillary in a primary doesn't necessarily mean that the voters of the state won't still choose him over McCain- but Hillary's supporters are pointing out that one can't count on that happening if there's enough evidence of Democratic voters' unsatisfaction with him.

    What seems clear to me is that Obama will have to win with a different electoral strategy than the Dems have had in recent memory. He really is the weaker of the two with the particular voters who are the backbone of the Dem constituency in some of the larger states, so he'll have to have larger turnout of some of the OTHER Dem constituencies in those states, and/or attract a new kind of constituency to pick up some previously red states. And that may well happen- if there was a year to try a new strategy, then this is such a year. But I don't think Clinton's supporters are wrong to point out that ultimately the party could look back on this as an unforced error- if the new strategy fails, then they may regret that they didn't go with what was probably a safer route.

    And in case I seem to be a concern troll- I'm honestly just interested in the dynamics from an outside the Democratic party vantage point. Of course I do hope that McCain prevails, but honestly I think the general political climate is stacked against him and the GOP but that he does have at least a chance against either of the two Democratic candidates (but he'll have to run a different kind of campaign depending on who the opponent is.)

    Anyway, no "Operation Chaos" going on here, I'm just giving my opinion.
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    And a well-constructed opinion at that. Thanks.
 
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