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Monday, May 19, 2008

So... who's the electable one? (Dispatch from Oregon)

One of Clinton's major talking points has been that "Obama is unelectable" or the more nuanced "Obama can't win the states that a Democrat must win to succeed in November", i.e. PA, OH, and FL. Now on the basis of these three states - Clinton is the more electable (Clinton: +10, +8.5, +8)(Obama: +5, -1, -1). The lie of this argument is that Nov. 2008 is not Nov. 2004 or 2000.

I was trawling through the last month of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com ... as one does... and found some interesting changes in the electoral map.

(1) Obama opens up the West (CO and NV) and the Mid-Atlantic (VA and NC). Something that Clinton is utter incapable of doing - those states all go into her "can't win" basket. From the historical perspective, that would be the first time a Democrat had won the Old Dominion since they ran on a segregationist platform. (That's not actually true, LBJ won it in '64 and Truman won in '48. But I think anyone reading this will agree that it doesn't count if you (a) ran against Old Goldy or (b) won a World War.)

(2) Clinton opens up the West (CA and WA) - to the GOP - and loosens the Democrat's grip on the Great Lakes States (MN, WI, and MI).
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Did that sink in?
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I'm not saying that McCain will win CA, MN or WA, but the suggestion passes the "laugh-test"... which should make the Democrats sweat - not to mention allocate campaign funds. So win or lose, that's a win for the Republican Party.


Without further ado, here are the maps...


Clinton - McCain:
http://monarch.tamu.edu/~smrs/21201214.gif

Obama - McCain;
http://monarch.tamu.edu/~smrs/21091415.gif Full Post