Cry, Bots, Cry
By SusanUnPC on May 13, 2008 at 5:59 PM in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton
V noticed these salient quotes from the Financial Times article that spell bad news for “The One”:
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916, yet Mr Obama appears to have little chance of winning there in November. Recent opinion polls indicate that Mrs Clinton would narrowly beat Mr McCain in the state but Mr Obama would lose by nearly 20 percentage points.
***
“If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40-year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”
Hell, Missy, he has no prayer of winning the national race in November.
He can’t even carry Massachusetts at this point! EVEN GEORGE McGOVERN carried Massachusetts in the humiliation of Nixon’s landslide victory against him. Right now, Obama is running even — 47/47% — against McCain in Massachusetts!
TexasDarlin’s story yesterday, “Clinton’s Rural Advantage” spelled it out in part:
[THE SECTION PRECEDING HAS SOME EXCELLENT MAPS THAT ILLUSTRATE THE CLINTON ADVANTAGE IN RURAL AREAS.]
>Hillary has hit her stride in small towns and rural communities across the country, connecting with working class voters with a populist appeal reminiscent of Bobby Kennedy. For those who have followed Hillary Clinton’s life and career, we know it’s genuine. You can see the joy on her face when she’s working the rope line in town squares, even at the end of a 16-hour day. Of course Obama’s “bitter” moment aided her, but cinching this demographic segment is a crucial achievement that Clinton has earned for the Democrats. And, you might say…one benefit of this extended primary season that some party members are anxious to end.
A Democratic pollster for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News said it well:
Rural and small-town voters are the best indicators of whether a candidate is connecting with the values of Middle America. “They are America. Too often Democrats end up with candidates who can speak only to metro America. If you can speak to [rural and small-town America], then you relate to the rest of America.”Pay attention, folks. These are General Election swing voters needed to reach 270 electoral votes.
Swing voters.
And no one understands that better than the superdelegates, many of whom rely on these same voters for their own re-elections. …
The SDs (SuperDelegates) seem determined to give the Democrats another bitter defeat come November. It is maddening given the clear fact that Hillary Clinton has a fighting chance in all the big electoral states, and those crucial rural areas.
I cannot fathom their thinking, except to guess that it is that they want to be a part of the group that is annointing “The One” with a brief victory before the slaughter come November.
In his latest column which is about the race card being employed against the Clintons, Pat Buchanan also points out the electability problem that Obama faces. I’ve HIGHLIGHTED the portion of Buchanan’s column that most pertains to the electability issue that we’re discussing here:
Last week came Hillary’s turn. After her victory in Indiana and loss in North Carolina, which pundits said rang down the curtain on her presidential bid, she advanced an argument candidates have used since primary elections began. “I can win — and my opponent can’t.”
The argument was made against Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan.
In an interview with USA TODAY, Hillary argued that the coalition she has put together would be stronger against John McCain than the coalition Barack has cobbled together.
She began by relating an AP article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Hillary. “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.”
This shot Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post into low orbit.
“As a rationale for why Democratic Party super-delegates should pick her over Obama, it’s a slap in the face to the party’s most loyal constituency — African Americans — and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here’s what she’s really saying to party leaders: There’s no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you’ll be sorry …
“Clinton implies but doesn’t quite come out and say … that Obama is black — and that white people who are not wealthy are irredeemably racist.”
But Hillary was saying no such thing. Describing her coalition, [Hillary Clinton] was implying that Obama’s coalition — a George McGovern-Jesse Jackson combine embracing 90 percent of African-Americans, plus liberals, students and cause people — has less chance of beating McCain than does she and her more Middle American coalition.
Democrats, not liberal Democrats, are the swing votes who decide presidential races. Here Hillary beats Obama three to two or two to one, North and South.
Buchanan is correct. Obama cannot win with an erstwhile, unreliable youth vote and a few elite liberals. He needs the reliable Democratic voters — the regular Democrats — to vote for him.
But, this year, those centrist/moderate/slightly-to-the-right Democrats have a fresh choice in the Republican candidate. They see enough positives in John McCain that they will have no problem voting for him in November.
by Ronald Scott
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