Obama: Still a Heavy Underdog Against Mighty Clinton

The New York Times weighs in on a common theme: the fundamental split in the Democratic electorate.

Senator Barack Obama scored impressive weekend victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in several Democratic presidential nomination contests. He is well positioned for this week’s voting in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. But neither candidate has achieved what is most important for deciding their battle. That is breaking the pattern of voter preferences that has structured their competition so far.

That pattern — driven by demographics and electoral mechanics — has proven more powerful than momentum or the candidates’ policy messages. In the quest for delegates over the next three months, they will be wrestling the pattern as much as each other.

The pattern stems in part from what is sometimes called identity politics — not surprising in a race with two history-making candidates.

Mrs. Clinton, of New York, who would be the first woman to be president, has dominated among women; according to exit polls, they have consistently constituted 55 percent or more of the Democratic electorate. Mr. Obama, of Illinois, who would be the first black president, has dominated among blacks by even more lopsided margins.

But with the exception of a few states like South Carolina and Georgia, where blacks represented a majority and Mr. Obama won, they have represented a far smaller share of the vote.

Mrs. Clinton, drawing on memories of prosperity during her husband’s presidency, has held steady advantages among Hispanics, older voters and blue-collar whites. Mr. Obama’s inspirational “Yes We Can” message has produced an edge among young people, independents, college graduates and higher-income Democrats.

Those disparate collections can to some degree be distinguished using labels — Mrs. Clinton’s as more moderate, Mr. Obama’s as more liberal. But “the ideological differences clearly seem to be driven by demographics,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.

Those differences have helped define another important element.

While Mrs. Clinton has performed best in primaries, like New Hampshire and California, Mr. Obama has excelled in caucuses that turn on organizational prowess, from the kickoff event in Iowa to the Washington and Nebraska contests over the weekend.

That is partly because Mr. Obama invested more heavily in grass-roots organization in his bid to overcome Mrs. Clinton’s establishment advantages. Moreover, the time and information required for caucus participation attract demographic elites drawn to the Illinois senator in the first place — his “Starbucks Democrats,” rather than Mrs. Clinton’s “Dunkin’ Donuts Democrats,” as Chris Lehane, a former aide to Al Gore, puts it. [...]

Of course, I remind the reader that Obama and Clinton have both won 9 primary states; Obama has taken 9 of the 10 caucus states.

What is a bit disturbing to me is that Senator Clinton doesn’t want to seem to take responsibility; instead she makes excuses:

nstead of acknowledging gracefully that she got beat badly during this weekends contests (like Edwards did after his disappointing showing in Nevada), Hillary stood in front of a crowd at general motors and tried to diminish Obama’s victories this weekend.

Clinton Dismisses Weekend Losses

Hillary Clinton on Monday explained away Barack Obama’s clean sweep of the weekend’s caucuses and primaries as a product of a caucus system that favors “activists” and, in the case of the Louisiana primary, an energized African-American community.

She told reporters who had gathered to watch her tour a General Motors plant here that “everybody knew, you all knew, what the likely outcome of these recent contests were.”

“These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand.”

Clinton has publicly dismissed the caucus voting system since before Super Tuesday, seeking to lower expectations heading into a series of contests that played to Obama’s advantage. His campaign features what many consider to be a stronger and more dedicated grassroots organization than Clinton’s.

Noting that “my husband never did well in caucus states either,” Clinton argued that caucuses are “primarily dominated by activists” and that “they don’t represent the electorate, we know that.”

The New York senator went out of her way to say she was “absolutely” looking forward to the Ohio and Texas primaries in March, where she believes voters are more receptive to her bread-and-butter message.

She also downplayed many of Obama’s Super Tuesday victories, describing them as states that Democrats should not expect to win in November.

“It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska,” she said, naming several of Obama’s red state wins. “But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan … And we’ve got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma.”

This is the most explicit I’ve heard Hillary use the “Obama only wins caucuses/red states/black people primaries” line. What amazes me about this is that her campaign seems to be actively writing groups of people off, instead of trying to win every vote that she can.

When was the last time a democrat wrote off the black vote this much? Afrerican Americans have long been considered a large part of the Democratic party base. Instead of trying to win inroads with African Americans, Hillary is making no real effort to chip away at Obama’s lead.

Obama, on the other hand, is making efforts to embrace every group, including those that have supported Hillary so far. This is no more clear than with the Latino vote. Instead of trying to write the Hispanic vote off, Obama’s campaign is making every effort to highlight his successes with the Hispanic vote in certain states, and is actively courting it in states like Texas.

I see: Hillary Clinton is the person who will be “ready from day one”, and yet she was unprepared to run a competitive primary campaign.
Gee, if Obama is such an “empty suit”, why is she having so much trouble putting him away?

Of course, people’s tempers have flared a bit. And there are some who say that the “Anybody but Clinton” vote is something that ought to be taken seriously. I am not in that category, but I do get some feelings of contempt for those who can’t acknowledge their own shortcomings, or those who dismiss those in their party that haven’t gone strongly for them.

Oh yes, she is still the favorite though she is having to work for it. And we aren’t taking anything for granted!

[...]Brief autobiographical digression: I am a litigator by profession and calling. I fight battles every day, and not always with my wife, who inevitably wins.

I have learned through very hard experiences that no battle is won by sitting on your lead, or thinking you are winning, or thinking you have the thing wrapped up. I have seen attorneys on the other side underestimate me because I am young, or because I will appear at early meetings purposefully disheveled (tie askance, papers humorously unorganized and out of order), or because they looked me up and know I went (WARNING: please ask your children to leave the room at this time) to a state school.

These are opposing counsel over whose charred bodies I usually stand at the end of a case, tie straightened, papers neatly collated, a victory in my pocket and in the proceedings of record.

Because I trained under people who taught me that the only way to succeed is three-fold: preparation, preparation, preparation. I also learned after getting my wee head dashed against the rocks of experience that the very last thing you do is underestimate your opponent (no matter how much you like him or her, no matter how reasonable and civil your exchanges are), because that is when you lose.

To quote Quentin Tarantino, auteur, in Pulp Fiction: “That’s how you’re gonna beat ‘em, Butch. They keep underestimating you.” These words are true.

Back to the main: I watched with avid interest the efforts of the Clintons in 1992, and I observed as a student of politics their moves throughout the rough days of the early 1990s and the dark days of the later 1990s. The paramount lesson taught by the Clintons is that you do not underestimate the Clintons. They are wicked smart, resourceful, tenacious, dogged, terrier-like in intensity, indefatigable, resilient, tough, and they can be, at times, ruthless. Utterly without ruth.

If you disbelieve me, I can point to a cemetary lined in neat little rows with headstones planted squarely over the political careers of those who thought otherwise.

I know these things, and yet I see the crowing. The strutting. The we-got-em-beat-boy-howdy posts here, covering this site like a sea of orange peacockery. Look at my shiny, victorious feathers. See how they awe.

Take heed, friends:

Senator Obama has won nothing. You have won nothing. We have won nothing.

I see the state results roll in, and where people see winning states I see points of vulnerability because there are those in which Sen. Obama has not prevailed. Where people tout delegate totals, I see an ocean of danger, an ocean covered with lit oil waiting to burn my candidate in a fiery bath of defeat. Where people abacus popular votes in an effort to show how much he is ahead, I see votes going the other way that simply mean that they–we–are sitting around on our asses, not working, not trying, not preparing enough.

Where people see strength in organization, I see laziness. Every step that does not advance the ball toward vistory is a misstep, even if it is not a misstep.

I saw the polls in the days and weeks leading up to that that hard day in November 2004. “The polls show Kerry ahead in Wisconsin!” “Kerry looks like he will win it by three points!” “The exit polls say Kerry has it! w00t!” “Where do I get my tickets to the inaugural ball? Do I call the campaign directly, or…?”

Dolts. Stupid, unprepared, inactive dolts we were. Parsing out polls in a masturbatory love-fest while the never-to-be-underestimated Republicans eked out a win by doing the hard work. We awoke from our sticky days of self-love and he-might-just-pull-it-out fantastic voyages to find them holding the election and us holding the bag. And we know exactly what that got us.

So Sen. Clinton has had some small money woes, and has not won in a few states, and has had a bit of a staff shakeup. And I guess that all means that Obama is winning. Well I say hogwash and horsesh*t to all that.

Obama is not winning, you fool.

Obama is not even close to winning. He is 800 delegates behind. He is 30 points down in the polls. He is awash in shiftless volunteers with IQs of 80 and facing empty coffers and the phonelines are down and help isn’t coming. [...]

Amen brother!!! I am doing my phone banking for Wisconsin this weekend, and yes, I’ll do some for Texas in the weeks after that!

As you can see, the outlook is not all that rosy for us.

A new Brown University poll of 474 likely Democratic primary voters in Rhode Island (2/9-2/10 with a MoE of 5%) shows that Hillary Clinton holds a slim lead over Barack Obama.

* Hillary Clinton – 36%
* Barack Obama – 28%
* Uncommitted – 27%
* Undecided – 9%

So, Yes We Can, but only if we get off of our butts and work!

Remember, we’ve done nothing of consequence as yet, and none of our victories mean a thing:

This post was inspired by a comment I read earlier yesterday, which I can’t find now, so apologies for the unsourced inspiration.

One of the hilarious side-effects of every Obama victory is the spin from Clinton quarters and its surrogates and supporters explaining why said victories “don’t matter”.

Iowa didn’t matter because it was a caucus state, and it’s undemocratic. Same goes for every other caucus state including Maine. The only caucus state that mattered was Nevada.

Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Alaska, and Utah don’t matter because they’re small Red states that Democrats won’t carry in November.

Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Louisiana don’t matter because they have black people. Expect the same spin out of DC this Tuesday. Black people don’t apparently count.

Washington and Minnesota don’t matter because they have educated white people.

In any case, Washington, Nebraska, and Louisiana didn’t matter on Saturday because everyone expected Obama to win them anyway.

Virginia and Maryland, assuming they’re won by Obama, will be a combination of the “black people” and “educated people” rationalizations. Throw a little of “Obama was expected to win anyway”, and you’ve got the trifecta.

Illinois doesn’t matter because that’s Obama’s home state. Expect the same spin when Obama wins Hawaii by double-digit margins in two weeks.

Missouri doesn’t matter because Clinton sent out a press release claiming she won it.

Colorado was a caucus state, so that leaves Delaware and Connecticut. Those are the only two states that apparently matter, giving Hillary Clinton a commanding 10-2 lead among states that matter.

One final line of attack used to minimize Obama’s victories is the notion that “he can’t win states without his base”, his base of course being African Americans, white yuppies, and Red state Democrats. [...]

Now some Republicans (e. g., Dick Morris) have some things to say about this, but who listens to them?