FreeDuck wrote:Well, there's also Missouri and Delaware.
In Missouri and Delaware it was the sizable African-American population in each that pushed Obama over the hump, just like in Georgia and Alabama. (Blacks made up 17% of the voters in Missouri, and 28% in Delaware.) So those do not affect the guy's argument that - (my paraphrasing) - "the only 'proper' primaries that Obama won so far were those were there was a sizable African-American population to help him over the hill - plus his homestate Illinois." Connecticut and Utah are the only exceptions to that, and that's not much.
Quote:Well, duh, he's the challenger so he has to get people to know him without the advantage of having been in the public eye for the last 15 years or so. He has to work harder for it and he has to do it from the ground up. Obviously that makes bigger states harder for him to win. But it doesn't mean he can't do it.
Agreed - he's got a full month to prepare for Ohio and Texas, more for Pennsylvania. If he starts advertising and campaigning there straight away now I think he should stand a chance. I mean, even in the bigger Super Tuesday states that he lost, he did make up a lot of ground in little time.
But yes, the guy did have a point in that those three - big states, primaries instead of caucuses, lots of blue-collar whites, will be tough nuts to crack. And I dont know about you, but I hadnt myself realised the primaries vs caucuses divide yet, I mean, not that it was this big. And of course it makes sense that it is easier for Obama to score in caucuses that involve a smaller slice of the electorate and are all about conveying enthusiasm and mobilising activists than in a primary, especially a big-state primary. But that does imply a warning.
I mean, Obama won big across all population groups in the caucuses in states like MN, ND, ID, KS, AK - mostly lily-white states. So that's the good news! But among the states that had
primaries (or like NM, primary-like caucuses) - the ones that there are exit polls for - Obama beat Hillary among whites in just 3 of the 16 states. Only in IL, NM and UT. He got close in states with lots of higher-educated/income people like California and Connecticut, but trailed Hillary among whites by double digits in DE, MA, MO, AZ, NY, NJ, OK, TN, AL and AR.
Now in Louisiana, Maryland and Virginia, he will be fine, because the 30-40% of the white vote he usually gets will be augmented with massive support of the black voters, who make up 33-46% of the primary electorate there, while there are few Latinos. But Ohio and Texas are a different story, and I suppose Pennsylvania is too (does anyone have the numbers for the demographics of the primary electorate in these states, actually?).
You could argue that the lesson of Super Tuesday is that, while Obama's ground game (and Hillary's neglect) made all the caucus states topple his way; all his charisma, the motivation of his volunteers on the ground, and the media blitz he got were not enough to swing the white majority in states that had primaries instead of caucuses his way. Not within the time window he had.
So if he
is to win states like OH, PA and TX on March 4 and beyond, he needs to focus a good chunk of his campaign resources there already right now. Start personally campaigning there straight away, and not rely too much on the momentum of a string of smaller victories throughout this month.
