Since Barack Obama is all but the certain Democratic Party nominee for the President of the United States, I thought I'd play with the electoral map in addressing the supposed weakness of our candidate: the oft-repeated notion that he is completely out of touch with the white blue-collar workers. Hillary Clinton has often pointed to this fact in highlighting his vulnerabilities come November given the fact that white blue-collar workers comprise the two most contested battleground states--Ohio and Pennsylvania--which Obama has to win in order to take the White House. His losses in both of those states, as well as his huge loss in my home state of Kentucky, seem to confirm the validity of Hillary's argument. While I think there is some truth to this and he indeed, has a problem in winning over the white blue-collar, lower middle class vote, I think that playing with the electoral map, taking into consideration the demographics of some battleground states, might undercut Hillary's argument and show him to be a much stronger candidate than she makes him out to be.
Let's take the worst case scenario and assume Obama will loose Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes) and Ohio (20 votes). This means he has to pick up the 41 electoral votes in some other states. In 2004, Kerry narrowly won Pennsylvania 51-49% and given the fact that Kerry's wife's family has deep roots in Philadelphia and he ran a strong worker-oriented campaign with Edwards on his ticket (and he was white) this might actually happen. Ohio always ends up disappointing the Democrats and in 2004 Bush won 51-49%. Although I am not very familiar with Ohio, I know the area adjacent to Louisville, especially the Hamilton county which includes the greater Cincinnati area. Cincinnati is a city that is deeply divided along racial lines, a division that was only exacerbated by numerous incidents of white police officers shooting unarmed African-Americans. However, Bush carried this county by only 6% points which can be explained by a big African-American population in the city. If this population turns en-mass in November and I have no doubt that they will, Obama might do better than Kerry in this county. But let's still assume the worst and agree that Obama will loose Ohio. Which states might come to the aid of Obama in case this happens?
I believe the following states might be in play in November: Iowa (7 votes), Missouri (11 votes), Virginia (13), Colorado (9), N. Carolina (15), New Mexico (5).
Iowa and Missouri are both in play this fall. Obama has literally camped out in Iowa for the past 15 months and has built an enormous grass roots organization that can crush any organization McCain establishes in the state given his abysmal performance in the Republican primaries there. The state also has 30% independents who tend to go over to the Democrats at times when the Republican brand name is in the toilet. If Obama chooses a conservative (maybe even a Republican a la Chuck Hagel) as his running mate, he will win the state given the fact that Bush carried it by only 10,000 votes (less than 1%). Missouri is also pretty much in play given St.Louis' huge and very active African-American population as well as the state party's support for Obama all bide very well for him. Bush won Missouri 53-46%, so it might be an uphill battle, but given Obama's appeal among independents and moderates as well as his ability to cause a massive African-American turnout never seen before, will all certainly help close the gap.
In Virginia, Obama's comfortable win over Hillary shows that in this state he did win over many white voters who will follow him into the general election in November. Bush won the state 54-46%, but Bush's abysmal popularity rating and Obama's conservative running mate would go a long way towards putting the state in play. This is why I think Obama should seriously consider Senator Jim Webb of Virginia as his running mate. This former Marine whose son is still in Iraq has been an early and persistent critic of the Iraq war and he enjoys considerable popularity in the state. I think his autobiography would enhance Obama's national security credentials (although a five-year old would have more legitimacy in this arena than Bush and the Republicans) and Obama's chances to win Virginia. In Colorado, which Bush took by only 5%, Obama has also built a strong grassroots organization the results of which we saw in his comfortable win over Hillary in the state's caucus. I know that North Carolina might be a long shot, but the African-American turn out this November will be like nothing like we have seen before, and this might be enough to carry him over the top considering the fact they comprise over 21% of the state's population. Finally, New Mexico. Here, Bill Richardson can do a lot of campaigning on behalf of Barack and offset Obama's weakness among the Latino communities. This may not be such a long shot if we remember that Bush carried that state by less than 6,000 votes.
If you are thinking "God Fedja is hallucinating if he thinks that Obama can win these states," you should keep an eye out on local special elections that have been taking place in several districts that had previously been as red as the color of the Soviet flag. The Congressional seat in the Prentiss County in Mississippi was taken over by the Democrat Travis Childers. Despite the fact that the district voted for Bush by a 25% margin and the state's GOP constantly ran TV ads associating Childers to Obama and Reverend Wright, Childers took the seat by a 54-46% margin! In Louisiana, the Republicans lost another seat that had been in their hands for more than 33 years. Democrat Don Cazayoux won despite another anti-Obama campaign with TV ads saying: "A vote for Cazayoux is a vote for Obama." And finally, in Illinois' 14th district, Dennis Hastert's former seat was taken over by Democrat Bill Foster in a fight against the xenophobic and limitlessly stupid Republican Jim Oberweis who ran on a transparently chauvinistic anti-immigrant platform (and lost!). Foster made the campaign a referendum on Bush's performance and sailed to D.C. These are pretty clear harbingers of what is to come to the Republicans in November. And despite of how overdue their crushing defeat will be, oh how sweet it will be!
In ending this long post, I still think that Obama's supposed weakness among the whites is overblown. Take Kentucky for instance. Even though it would be hard to fathom an Obama victory in the bluegrass state, considering the demographics of Eastern Kentucky, Obama did not even try to win the state or even close the gap. I emailed their campaign repeatedly, offering my services as soon as I got back into the country. I wanted to go door to door, call people, and do whatever else necessary. They did email me back and thanked me for my support, suggesting a few things I could do online, but the local organizers never bothered to call me. And Obama came to Kentucky (and only to Louisville) once! If he had tried harder, his loss would have been narrower. And there is plenty of time between now and November. I guess the point of my rambling is that he will not lose Ohio and Pennsylvania and will be embraced by the core of the Democratic party voters!
Am I too optimistic?
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10 comments:
I will allow a little bit of optimism as well. I think he can win all those states you mentioned and maybe even Louisiana.
Also, the Dems are picking up steam in the West and Rockies. I think Nevada might be an opportunity for an upset.
Unfortunatley, I'm worried this "Obama doesn't do well with white voters" will enter into a viscious feedback loop. "What, he doesn't do well with working class voters? Well I'm working class and white, I guess I can't vote for him."
Unfortunatley, thats how some people, regardless of race or class, function.
I'd say you need a hobby, but I suppose that's what this is. Or maybe you should forget law (and grad) school and skip right to being some sort of pundit?
j
Fedja, I'd indulge your fantasy were it not for a simple fact: Obama will lose to McCain. We should all, willy-nilly, accept the fact that this country has been under a spell for the past eight years, and though the magic is waning and people are coming to their senses, enough of it is still in the air to lead people to choose unwisely yet again.
way to drop the hopeless bomb, alen. let's all stay at home on election day, cause it just. doesn't. matter. boo. hoo. don't get your heartrate up considering the POSSIBILITIES, cause it just isn't worth it.
this is exactly the kind of apathy that helped cause this so-called spell we're all under. oh, the democrats didn't win a presidential election for eight years, guess they better give up.
To be fair to Alen, the Repubs have wone like 8 out of the last 10 presidential elections. There is a big streak of the authoritarian personality in this country.
But I think this is the Dems best shot since Clinton defeated Bush 41.
I think Alen is acting on his ingrained Bosnian superstitious impulse not to wish something good to much as you may jinx it. This happened in 2004 when I bet $100 that Kerry would win (Pug, thanks for not taking my money as you didn't want to "make profit out of this tragedy" as you put it eloquently).
I do believe, however, that Obama has started something amazingly good here. The two conversations he has sparked--the one on race and on foreign policy--have been incredibly good for this country. They have inspired people to actually start listening to BBC, reading about JFK's negotiations with Khruschev, and reflect on America's role in the world.
Even if Obama loses, he has already done monumental things for our country and certainly made me proud to be a part of it.
I also want to volunteer for his campaign in battleground states, starting in August, and maybe we could use this blog to join our forces? Maybe drive together? Any ideas?
I will be in Ohio, THE swing state.
If you are going to be a volunteer. Be a real volunteer. Don't be one of the hipsters who congratulates each other and then only goes to districts that are already safely Dem.
If politics was about getting like minded people with similar tastes and lifestyes to vote for the same candidate, then this shit would be easy. But its not, its about getting people whom you would never even think of talking to in everday life to vote for your man or woman.
For the grad student, this is often particularly difficult for students, who would rather not venture out of the friendly confines of academia and back toward the cities, small towns, and suburbs from where they came.
I agree Pug. Does that mean I can crash at your place while I canvass the state?
people are allowed a healthy measure of pessimism, whether it's because they're bosnian, bangladeshi, or 'baman, but it's the spiral into apathy and hopelessness that I find irritating. sure, the republicans have been in office for the majority of my life, but let's take that into context before using it as a blanket excuse to consign ourselves to a mccain win. we're coming out of decades of living in fear of an abstract enemy, disappointment in and mistrust of our government, shifting international stature, and violent social change in our country. some people are still motivated by fear, yes, and those prone to the feedback loop, whether it be centered on race, economics, religion, terrorism, or environmentalism, make up a significant portion of our voting population. but the fact that obama is as successful as he is signifies a change in public discourse. we're done with living in the past (we have a candidate that, while compared in many ways to JFK, doesn't have that iconic memory of where he was when he was shot because he was only 2). maybe it's ok to get some good work done in america. maybe it's ok imagine a leader that we don't make excuses for. maybe we'd like to take another stab at those idealistic dreams that were shot down in the 60's, because we're sick of living with the expectation that failure is inevitable.
i've been tempted to tell myself that hillary will somehow get the nomination, or that mccain will beat the democrats, but this sort of mental game provides no comfort, for it only reveals that ease at which i'm ready to live in disappointment and fear. i'm not blind to the possibility that either of those things could happen, but i'm not going to indulge in the "I knew it" self-pity that democrats (including myself, circa november 2004) have been so ready to adopt.
it doesn't do us any good to cut down each other's hopes with unproductive pessimism. we have to remember that it is not one man or woman that is going to bring about change- it's us. there is no harm in doing what you can, whether it's recycling a plastic bottle in the face of chinese mega-industrialization or voting democratic in a republican county. and there's nothing wrong with being disappointed that the outcome isnt' what you wanted. it's what we do with that disappointment that is dangerous to our country.
i will now step off my optimistic soapbox and clean the bathroom.
Wonderfully said, Ashley.
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