A few weeks ago irrelevant candidate Hillary Clinton scored decisive victories in irrelevant, uncultured, and possibly racist states. Of course for Obama supporters this isn't surprising or alarming because Hillary expected to win there, and Obama has the numbers on his side. However, as pundits are slowly catching on, that's not as reassuring as it seems. In the last week more attention has finally been paid to what Ohioans have grimly acknowledged for some time now: Obama will need to win Ohio, and he faces a profound challenge in doing so decisively.
I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks now and probably should have posted earlier so that I could retain my self-proclaimations of clairvoyancy, but to do so now I have to push harder as the pundits are starting to put the pieces together as I write this. Put simply, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio are linked together demographically and no candidate can be competitive in Ohio without being also competitive in her neighboring states. The results of the Ohio primary showed Obama's strengths plainly but it was not until Kentucky and West Virginia that his weaknesses became so boldly illustrated. The margins that declared Obama's loss in Ohio were carved out everywhere in between Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinatti, often by 20 points or more, but what saved him from disgrace in Ohio was strong urban support, which he had little to speak of in Kentucky and West Virginia. These voters that I speak of now have similar economic needs and expectations from a presidential candidate and often vote on those principles when not otherwise stressed by social conservancy. This allowed a few nice legislative victories in 2006, but none of these campaigns were so ideologically based as Obama's, they were specific (as you can get in politics) solutions to identifiable problems and they were little else.
Of course Obama has a plan, and much like his primary performance it has to do with a simplistic appraisal of electoral rules. Obama will focus on Ohio and ignore Kentucky and West Virginia; he will pay special attention to new registration, provisional ballots, and the media campaign. It is simply too difficult to run a campaign against the geography of Ohio as a singular candidate and the media, along with Ted Strickland and Ohio darling Sherrod Brown, will be his most valuable tools. Yet the geography will most likely win, despite borrowing Strickland's and Brown's valuable inroads to Ohio politics, those inroads are still not his own and he fits them poorly. But in the Obama Campaign's perception, it is Ohio, and nothing else that is the goal to understand. They won't investigate why he was rejected by 20+ points in Ohio's neighbors, but investigate why he was behind only 8 points in Ohio itself, and his roadmap to failure will be predicated on this misjudgment without ever seriously considering the notion that the two phenomena are actually one.
That is my projection, I hinted at it earlier but I believe it is final now. The abilities of the Obama campaign have reached their zenith and on his own merits Obama can do no more with the resources he has; he relies on luck as his campaign will, at best, be defined by the odds not dissimilar to the flip of a coin: Ohio, by less than 4 points. To get there he will need to register even more voters (already there is expected record turnout), and spend a good deal of time in the state personally, but not so much as to lose the slim margins that he hopes to maintain in other states that are just as important as Ohio, but perhaps not so hotly contested by Republicans.
There is an alternative, but it relies on Clinton to display leadership abilities not seen from the presidency since that of the Abraham Lincoln. She would basically need to convince Super Delegates to unanimously reject Obama and actually lead Democrats to the legislative pick-ups that they currently cross their fingers for as they recall 2006. She would also have to win decisively herself, and crush any internal dissent along the way without any damage. I don't know that she has that skill. Yes, she is a skilled politician and lucky as well, but she would need to dispose of her enemies elegantly, without direct action. The Democratic party faces two inferior decisions this late in the game: to carry on to certain failures, or fight desperately for solid ground.
Hillary though, she will be fine regardless, she has said time and time again that she is the strongest candidate in the general, should Obama perform as expected she will look rather good, and in every scenario she retains her Senate seat.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
This is only what is happening right now.
In 2005, I had the fine experience of observing the phenomenon of new "don't blame me, I voted for..." bumper stickers, and keeping with the fine tradition, Kerry voters deflected blame for Bush's failed presidency with this simple statement. Now I find myself contemplating whether an Obama loss in November will create in Clinton the image of the overlooked messiah. As far as I know, it would be a first, but it would no be uncalled for. In this entry I will explain exactly why Obama can lose in November, and exactly why Democrats will not deflect blame by citing their support of Obama.
Let's first look at the man's career thus far; I find it rather elucidating in explaining the current state of chaos in the Democratic party. Barack Obama is a man who has never been truly tested in a campaign, and legislator who has never truly been a leader in any relevant capacity. His successful campaigns have been filled with the kind of luck and good fortune that is reminiscent of a Mr. Magoo cartoon. Obama avoids challenges within his party by ejecting them from the ballot, and when that doesn't work he is blessed by his opponents scandals. If it weren't for aggressive and inane legal tactics and series of messy divorces Barack Obama would have never won any election.
This is important because normally these early years in a political career are where prominent politicians develop the skills and influence to become leaders among their peers. When the chips are down, they develop new coalitions and strategies that strengthen their candidacies and their party's position in the region. Obama never did this. It begs the question now, as to whether his performance in the primaries has been a result of his never learning these skills or his unwillingness to use them. Only Obama can answer that question, and with only a handful of contests remaining, it appears doubtful that he will demonstrate the wisdom of his inaction.
This inaction is particularly distressing, for a man who has the tenacity to eject a woman from the ballot for the office that she previously held, Obama has shown no such force of will in his victorious primary campaign. By mid-February the writing was on the wall, and it was becoming mathematically impossible for Clinton to catch up any longer, and her own campaign was just realizing then that it was broke, and needed serious reorganization. Obama, in a pathetic display of leadership, acquiesced his victory to a precise experiment proposed by Clinton herself. Essentially, "If I win the contests that I know I will win, then Obama has not won", and Obama accepted it, fighting vigorously for Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. All losses. How smart is it to allow your opponent to define victory on their own terms when by all measurable qualifications they have been beaten?
Indeed, Obama is following his opponent's loss to his own victory. Before the Ohio campaign he had settled in to a hardy diet of large rallies and abstract rhetoric, but a speedbump appeared for him as it had less effect than in other areas. Hillary's campaign style of self-aggrandizing recitations of her own resume, filtered for the best geographical response became another option for Obama and he set about tackling the issues more directly. However his lackluster House and Senate record provided him little to speak about on top of an already tame platform, and in each one-on-one debate he failed to gain any groud amongst debate as to whether he lost some by trying. In the following months, the large rallys became more supplemented by smaller gatherings and more focused speeches, which have had less success than the rallies which by now, admittedly, are much more spectacle than anything else. As Obama plies Hillary's campaign tactics to his own, we have seen that it has garnered no great improvement to his much criticised grandiose rhetoric, and has not directly upset any election thus far. Both candidates have won every contest they expected to, but only Obama has lost contests he needed to win since February, when he should have been claimed presumptive nominee.
What should have been a checkmate, two weeks before the Ohio primaries, became for Obama, a stalemate, dictated by his own opponent. Now as we lurch toward the greatest political event in the world, we need to assess the state of Obama's campaign in relation to John McCain. In good times and bad, Republicans never lose sight of the most critical rule of electioneering: to turn your opponents strengths into liabilities. Most recently we all endured a decorated war hero being dragged through the mud by the campanions who commended him in his (at the time) unreleased military records. And as I will not speculate as to what exactly Republicans will throw at Obama, I will outline the weaknesses he currently faces as a candidate. First, as previously stated, he is weak on his own issues. To listen to him to drone on about the merits of his healthcare plan could be the least damaging aspect of his platform, and to hear him talk of his foriegn relations plans is to give Republicans new hope. To see him pressed on economics, is to see the now typical flustered and wandering persona of Obama on his own issues. He is a mediocre debater and he has mediocre platform that is not energizing his base in the least.
His base, is also a clear representation of the fundamental problems he faces in the general election. When FDR began shedding the racists, conservatives, bankers, and others in 1936 he began building the coalition that would win every Democratic presidency to the present day. He filled that void with laborers, immigrants, catholics, and minorities, and created a healthy core of Democratic voters who worked hard, and were by no means wealthy. Obama's candidacy has not energized each contingent of that coalition. In primaries he resolves this dilemma with great support from African Americans and younger voters, often reaching 90% support, but in every other area he lags behind or is even soundly defeated. To make matters worse he has done himself no favors here, often failing, ignoring, or even inciting the demographics that he cannot possibly win without. His strengths with young voters and African Americans is simply not enough to compensate in a General Election for the mediocre response he wins from every other key demographic. These contingents are often the margin of victory to be placed on top of great swathes of Democratic voters identified by class and religion, sadly, a fair portion of the god/gun clingers.
Without clear leadership from Obama, or the DNC, this particular election cycle must be lead somehow, and the duty falls on us: Democratic voters. This is really as it should be, but really where it rarely is. It is up Democrats across the country now define this race by our own values as it is obvious that no candidate has effectively touched on them thus far. Go to your county party HQ, your Democratic Women organizations, Democratic anything and organize. Createt the platform you need, and with a loud enough voice it will be picked up. Otherwise, all I need to do is make a killing on Intrade against Obama acolytes, and start turning out the "Don't Blame Me I Voted For Hillary" bumber stickers. See you in 2009.
Let's first look at the man's career thus far; I find it rather elucidating in explaining the current state of chaos in the Democratic party. Barack Obama is a man who has never been truly tested in a campaign, and legislator who has never truly been a leader in any relevant capacity. His successful campaigns have been filled with the kind of luck and good fortune that is reminiscent of a Mr. Magoo cartoon. Obama avoids challenges within his party by ejecting them from the ballot, and when that doesn't work he is blessed by his opponents scandals. If it weren't for aggressive and inane legal tactics and series of messy divorces Barack Obama would have never won any election.
This is important because normally these early years in a political career are where prominent politicians develop the skills and influence to become leaders among their peers. When the chips are down, they develop new coalitions and strategies that strengthen their candidacies and their party's position in the region. Obama never did this. It begs the question now, as to whether his performance in the primaries has been a result of his never learning these skills or his unwillingness to use them. Only Obama can answer that question, and with only a handful of contests remaining, it appears doubtful that he will demonstrate the wisdom of his inaction.
This inaction is particularly distressing, for a man who has the tenacity to eject a woman from the ballot for the office that she previously held, Obama has shown no such force of will in his victorious primary campaign. By mid-February the writing was on the wall, and it was becoming mathematically impossible for Clinton to catch up any longer, and her own campaign was just realizing then that it was broke, and needed serious reorganization. Obama, in a pathetic display of leadership, acquiesced his victory to a precise experiment proposed by Clinton herself. Essentially, "If I win the contests that I know I will win, then Obama has not won", and Obama accepted it, fighting vigorously for Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. All losses. How smart is it to allow your opponent to define victory on their own terms when by all measurable qualifications they have been beaten?
Indeed, Obama is following his opponent's loss to his own victory. Before the Ohio campaign he had settled in to a hardy diet of large rallies and abstract rhetoric, but a speedbump appeared for him as it had less effect than in other areas. Hillary's campaign style of self-aggrandizing recitations of her own resume, filtered for the best geographical response became another option for Obama and he set about tackling the issues more directly. However his lackluster House and Senate record provided him little to speak about on top of an already tame platform, and in each one-on-one debate he failed to gain any groud amongst debate as to whether he lost some by trying. In the following months, the large rallys became more supplemented by smaller gatherings and more focused speeches, which have had less success than the rallies which by now, admittedly, are much more spectacle than anything else. As Obama plies Hillary's campaign tactics to his own, we have seen that it has garnered no great improvement to his much criticised grandiose rhetoric, and has not directly upset any election thus far. Both candidates have won every contest they expected to, but only Obama has lost contests he needed to win since February, when he should have been claimed presumptive nominee.
What should have been a checkmate, two weeks before the Ohio primaries, became for Obama, a stalemate, dictated by his own opponent. Now as we lurch toward the greatest political event in the world, we need to assess the state of Obama's campaign in relation to John McCain. In good times and bad, Republicans never lose sight of the most critical rule of electioneering: to turn your opponents strengths into liabilities. Most recently we all endured a decorated war hero being dragged through the mud by the campanions who commended him in his (at the time) unreleased military records. And as I will not speculate as to what exactly Republicans will throw at Obama, I will outline the weaknesses he currently faces as a candidate. First, as previously stated, he is weak on his own issues. To listen to him to drone on about the merits of his healthcare plan could be the least damaging aspect of his platform, and to hear him talk of his foriegn relations plans is to give Republicans new hope. To see him pressed on economics, is to see the now typical flustered and wandering persona of Obama on his own issues. He is a mediocre debater and he has mediocre platform that is not energizing his base in the least.
His base, is also a clear representation of the fundamental problems he faces in the general election. When FDR began shedding the racists, conservatives, bankers, and others in 1936 he began building the coalition that would win every Democratic presidency to the present day. He filled that void with laborers, immigrants, catholics, and minorities, and created a healthy core of Democratic voters who worked hard, and were by no means wealthy. Obama's candidacy has not energized each contingent of that coalition. In primaries he resolves this dilemma with great support from African Americans and younger voters, often reaching 90% support, but in every other area he lags behind or is even soundly defeated. To make matters worse he has done himself no favors here, often failing, ignoring, or even inciting the demographics that he cannot possibly win without. His strengths with young voters and African Americans is simply not enough to compensate in a General Election for the mediocre response he wins from every other key demographic. These contingents are often the margin of victory to be placed on top of great swathes of Democratic voters identified by class and religion, sadly, a fair portion of the god/gun clingers.
Without clear leadership from Obama, or the DNC, this particular election cycle must be lead somehow, and the duty falls on us: Democratic voters. This is really as it should be, but really where it rarely is. It is up Democrats across the country now define this race by our own values as it is obvious that no candidate has effectively touched on them thus far. Go to your county party HQ, your Democratic Women organizations, Democratic anything and organize. Createt the platform you need, and with a loud enough voice it will be picked up. Otherwise, all I need to do is make a killing on Intrade against Obama acolytes, and start turning out the "Don't Blame Me I Voted For Hillary" bumber stickers. See you in 2009.
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