I believed this for a long time Hillary Clinton The choice arguments were nothing more than sophistry. After all, I reasoned John McCain it would be easier for him to defeat Hillary Clinton than
Barack Obama for two reasons: 1. Hillary would actually utilize the conservative base to defeat her, and 2. She would lose her independence and shift voters to McCain.
But now I’m starting to believe that Hillary Clinton actually has a legitimate argument to make to Democratic superdelegates – that she is, in fact, the best chance Democrats have of electing president this year.
Let me explain…
The common belief that Obama is harder to defeat is based on a false assumption; that what matters is national popularity. In fact, instead of having national A general election in which national popularity can matter, we have fifty individual state elections in November. This is, of course, common knowledge and is in no way a novel or sophisticated argument. But it is profound in the sense that it is so often overlooked by those engaged in political analysis. How often does the media give us national poll results to prove, for example, that Barack Obama would beat John McCain? Of course, these national polls are completely irrelevant, but they give us them anyway.
This is where Hillary’s argument comes into play.
Although Obama is undoubtedly more than that popularHillary has a legitimate argument that when it comes to the electoral map, she can actually win in states Obama can’t win.
While it is certainly true that Barack Obama won many more states than Hillary, it is vital to examine the “quality” of the states he wins. For example, Obama won North Dakota, a state with few delegates that John McCain would easily win anyway. It’s demanding to say, but it doesn’t really matter how popular Obama is in any one Red State. He might have ten times as many supporters in Alabama as Hillary, but it won’t matter because Republicans will win the state anyway. What matters are the gigantic swing states.
Obama also stood out in the state caucuses. One example is his victory in Maine (where fewer than 5,000 Democrats voted).
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton did well in states that have a lot of delegates, like California, as well as Michigan and Florida (both enormous swing states where delegates won’t even serve at the Democratic convention).
You may be thinking that Democrats have such an advantage now that it simply doesn’t matter whether the nominee is Obama or Hillary. Again, this would be true if there were national elections.
But, like John Fund recently described, when you start actually taking the time to look at the electoral map, John McCain looks a lot better. McCain probably wins every state Bush won in 2004, but he also includes other states. This, of course, proves Hillary’s point:
The assumption was that Democrats had an advantage because they could supposedly win every state that John Kerry carried in 2004, as well as Ohio, which was in economic distress and had experienced discrediting of the Republican Party. This would give the Democratic candidate at least 272 electoral votes.
However, McCain’s nomination for the Republican Party nomination overturns this calculation. He is the only potential GOP candidate who is clearly in a position to keep intact the basic red-blue voting pattern of each state in 2004 and then be able to move into blue territory.
Let’s assume Ohio goes to Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton. It’s at least as likely that McCain will be able to hold New Hampshire. The Granite State went only narrowly to Mr. Kerry, a senator from a neighboring state, and Mr. McCain has unique advantages there. New Hampshire’s elections hinge on the state’s fiercely independent voters, and McCain won over many of them in the 2000 and 2008 GOP primaries. Before this year’s primary, he spent 47 days in New Hampshire and is well-known in this state. If McCain lost Ohio but carried New Hampshire and all the other states Bush won in 2004, he would win 270-268.
As you can see, these elections will be close (in electoral terms, of course). Democrats will have to win every state they can, and that will be Hillary’s argument to the Super Delegates.
It’s vital to note that Hillary has the endorsement of the Democratic governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio – because they likely believe Hillary will win their states – and Obama does not.
The reason for this belief is unclear, but Pennsylvania’s governor Ed Rendellsupporter of Hillarly, even went so far as to suggest that covert racism could hurt Obama in his state (James Carville he said Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between). In fact, Governor Rendell supposedly told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
“You have white conservatives here, and I think there are some whites who probably aren’t ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”
In addition to possible hidden racism (as Rendell suggested), it is also reasonable to assume that voters in these “blue collar” states may be less likely to vote for Obama because he appears to be a teenage, inexperienced academic. Regardless, when you start looking at the electoral map instead of nationwide popularity, Hillary’s argument makes a lot more sense.
Super Delegates may ultimately face a very hard choice. They may say that only Hillary can win in 2008. At the same time, they may realize that snubbing Obama – after he has the most support – would be a devastating blow that would ultimately tear apart their coalition.
This is of course “inside baseball” an argument that Hillary could never utilize to convince voters. However, it is an argument that she will utilize to convince the Super Delegates. (I might add that this is exactly the kind of argument that the Super Delegates were asked to consider when submitting their proposals ). decisions.)
However, this may be debatable. If Hillary loses both Texas and Ohio on Tuesday, it won’t matter anyway. But if she wins Ohio – and then Pennsylvania – even though she’s well below the popular delegate count – Hillary will have a really good argument to present to the Super Delegates.
And then they will be faced with a gigantic, gigantic choice…
