Obama '08?

You can still stake out some position that both polls were unrepresentative for some other reason - I've got no idea what exactly you're actually thinking of, here, but who knows - but that then is irrelevant to the cellphone-only household question we were discussing.

I'm not saying that polls are necessarily inaccurate (indeed, they usually are)

GUT NUMBERS. [..] In Iowa this week, Barack Obama and his campaign were using a new tactic for persuading Democratic caucus voters: Contrasting his position on Iraq in 2002 with Hillary Clinton's vote that autumn by hanging some numbers on the decision to invade and the war that has ensued.

"It will be enormously difficult to invest in jobs and opportunity until we stop spending $275 million a day on this war in Iraq," Obama said. His campaign put out a press release -- relying on this clever little website -- that added the following, Iowa-specific context [..]:

For those living in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, which includes Des Moines, the cost of the war in Iraq will be $756.6 million through 2007. This total is equivalent to providing health care for 238,693 adults and 339,808 children; equipping 851,323 homes with renewable electricity; hiring 17,489 elementary school teachers; offering 134,819 scholarships for university students; creating 113,832 Head Start places for children; building 89 new elementary schools; recruiting 18,745 public safety officers; and hiring 12,676 port container inspectors.

With a lot of attention lately to the emotional-appeal arguments of Drew Westen, I would suggest that the strongest arguments are those that give people a sense of impact [..]. "Pricetagging" the Iraq war in terms that people can wrap their heads -- and guts -- around is a good way to do this, and Obama's team seems to get it.

--Tom Schaller

OBAMA AND RACE, PART 2,354. In Salon today, Michael Scherer has an article, cleverly titled "Hillary Is From Mars, Obama Is From Venus," arguing that Barack Obama is the girl candidate -- touchy-feely, empathetic, cranking up the Indigo Girls; while Hillary Clinton is the boy candidate -- direct, strong, presumably pumping up the Metallica in between Celine Dion tunes. Obama and Clinton "are fighting for undecided female voters who are attracted by Obama's feminine appeal, but still drawn to the macho performance of the only woman to ever have a real shot at the Oval Office," Scherer writes. "May the best woman win."

In recent days I've written a lot about the question of gender roles and the campaign (here, here, and here). So this certainly grabbed my attention. And it made me wonder: does the fact that Barack Obama is black insulate him from attacks on his masculinity?

The topic of Obama's race is already the most intricately examined cultural factor of this election, far more so than Hillary Clinton's gender. Is he too black? Is he not black enough? Is he the kind of black person who makes white people feel comfortable? What does his blackness say about us?

So we can add this one to the mix. The fact is that, your occasional Urkel notwithstanding, for better or worse (and more often than not it's worse), in our culture we associate black men with a whole series of stereotypically masculine traits, like athleticism, physical strength... I'm just going to stop there.

This isn't to say, of course, that Republicans won't try to argue that Obama is effeminate in the same way they're doing to John Edwards. That's what they do. (And some are trying already -- super-macho he-man Tucker Carlson has tagged Obama as a "wimpy" and "kind of a wuss.") But I suspect that these kind of attacks may just fall flat because they violate the associations so many people have embedded in their brains.

This isn't the only racial stereotype that could work to Obama's advantage. Time magazine has a new poll showing that voters perceive Obama to be the most religious of the Democratic candidates, despite the fact that in truth that honor probably belongs to Hillary Clinton. As Amy Sullivan wrote in the accompanying article, "Democrats have long outsourced religion to their African-American members, showing up in black churches the weekend before elections to clap along to gospel tunes, and treating black ministers as cuddly social justice mascots. As a result, black politicians rarely need to prove their religiosity -- they're given the benefit of the doubt."

The issue of Obama's race seems to grow more complex all the time. It's a good indication of his political acumen and the time he's spent thinking about his political identity that Obama has handled all these questions deftly, without letting them do any political damage to him (so far).

--Paul Waldman

Though I do still, also, think he comes across as a rather aloof type of intellectual / professor - if a young, handsome type of aloof professor. And I dont know to what extent his blackness (questions of right or wrong about its role on this aside) can shield him "against" that.

What I'm still most worried about is Obama having the best chance of anyone to win the general election, but being kept out of that position by not being able to win the Democratic primary.

If it werent for Hillary being a worst scenario type case in terms of overcoming entrenched animosities and reaching out to new voters, I dont think Obama would even be mentioned in this role as 'the reasonable alternative'. He's more liberal than Hillary, and well, he is black, and like Snood, I still think this will play more of a role than any of us would like. So if the 'mainstream Democrat' candidate would have been anyone else but Hillary, IMO, the whole "more electable" argument wouldn't even have come up at all.

Even as it is now, the latest Rasmussen poll is not the first one that shows John Edwards doing better in general election matchups than either Obama or Hillary. Despite the conservative machine's best efforts to ridicule him, Edwards also has fewer people committed to voting against him than any other candidate in either party.

I hadn't seen that Edwards is doing that well lately. I'd still be happy to have him be the Democratic nominee, especially if he can win the whole thing. In terms of my personal preferences he's a close #2 behind Obama, with Hillary way behind both of 'em.