One of the things that annoys me most is when otherwise intelligent people draw absurd conclusions due to a lack of a sense of history. As someone very wise once said, even those of us who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it. This is unfortunately a very true statement. And it was illustrated today by two politicos who should know better, one an Obama opponent and the other a proponent of the senator from Illinois.
Over at the Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan waxes optimistic about a poll from Minnesota showing Obama decimating McCain:
The candidate the Clintons and Rove say is weak has a 52 – 38 percent lead over McCain. Clinton’s lead is 5 percent. There’s a reason the GOP establishment wants Clinton. And the “he’s a commie leftist God-Hating racist” line of attack hasn’t worked too well
Well, except in New York and Massachusetts, where several recent polls show McCain trailing Obama by single digits. Or in Pennsylvania, where Obama outspent Clinton by some ridiculous margin or other and was still obliterated. In fact, pointing out that Obama is a political leftist and a cultural elitist who is unnervingly comfortable in the company of racists is working quite well I would say. And there’s nothing Rovian about pointing such things out if they are true, which they are. Would it be the politics of division to point out the leftism of Candidate Marx or the bigotry of Candidate Sharpton?
But I digress. The point is that Andrew is pointing to Minnesota as proof that Obama is decidedly electable in the fall. The reasoning is that since Bush only lost to Kerry by 3 in Minnesota in 2004, and since Hillary is only beating McCain by 5 in the state this year, the fact that Obama leads McCain by double digits means that Obama is the stronger Democratic candidate this year and portends an electoral blowout if Barack is the nominee. After all, if you shift the entire 2004 map 11 points to the left, what you get is a Bill Clinton style victory. Such reasoning is, of course, absurd to those who know their political history. Speaking of which, David Freddoso of The Corner falls into the same trap:
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) hits 50 percent. John McCain does not look so good.
A reader wonders:
If Minnesota is not in play at all, the Pawlenty VP slot makes less sense than some of the other choices.
Could be. I cannot pretend to understand what is ailing McCain in Minnesota (ethanol, perhaps?), although polls at this stage should always be taken with a grain of salt.
Freddoso, like Sullivan, seems to think that the electoral map is far more static than it actually is. What neither seem to realize is that the electoral maps of 2000 and 2004 were based on a) a Republican nominee who sported all of the qualities and flaws of George W. Bush, b) a white male center-left Democratic candidate who ran on, and did not repudiate, the legacy of Bill Clinton, and c) a set of issues and priorities that has since made way for an entirely different set of issues and priorities. As none of these factors are present in a McCain/Obama race, there is no reason to think that we won’t see an entirely new electoral template this year. That’s especially true due to the number of new voters who have come out of the woodwork for Barack and due to the sheer volume of angry Hillary supporters who hate Obama and angry former Bush voters who now hate Republicans.
But back to Minnesota. Both Andrew and David should be well aware of the strength of liberal politicians in the Upper Midwest in general and in Minnesota in particular. This was the region that gave us a host of “progressive” politicians throughout the 20th Century, after all. Far from the Rust Belt pragmatism and centrism that characterizes Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, the states of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin have long swooned over leftist politicians who seem to be able to win these states even while they lose the rest of the country. Just look at Michael Dukakis, who won the Upper Midwestern trio in 1988 while losing California and while just barely holding onto the Empire State and his own Bay State.
Consequently, Obama’s strength in Minnesota says absolutely nothing about his overall chances against McCain in the fall, nor does it prove that he would be a stronger opponent against McCain than Hillary Clinton. To the contrary, I continue to assert that Hillary would be the stronger of the two, as she can actually win electoral prizes like Ohio, Missouri, and Florida, while taking out of play states like New York and New Jersey. About the only thing that the Minnesota poll does suggest is that Pawlenty may be McCain’s John Edwards if nominated, i.e., a candidate who isn’t actually able to help McCain carry his home state or region due to the disproportionate strength of the opposition candidate in that region.
As for Sullivan and Freddoso, both are exhibiting the sense of history of one Homer J. Simpson, who, when reminiscing over Walter Mondale’s use of the line, “Where’s the beef?” in reference to Gary Hart in the 1984 race for the White House, remarked satisfyingly, “No wonder he won Minnesota.”
April 24th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Why do people take Andrew Sullivan seriously?
He’s Obama’s Hugh Hewitt.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Good article, though Iowa never really got on the progressive bandwagon like MN and WI. Harkin is an abnormality there.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Why does everyone keep talking about how Obama outspent her in PA?
Spending had nothing to do with it.
Let’s say Clinton outspent Obama in MS or GA or VA or SC. She could have outspent him 10-1 and she’d still have gotten creamed. Likewise Bush could have outspent Kerry 3-1 in NY in 2004 and he’d still have gotten creamed.
At a certain point, the deomgrpahic are what they are and you can’t do anything about it. What all that spending did do however, was possibly make sure Obama lost by 9 instead of say 15 or close to 20, which is what the Clintons and their supporters were hoping for and predicting.
It made sure she only gained 10 delegates, or the same amount he gained in WY and MS, instead of say 25 or 30 delegates.
Patr of the reason he outspent her is also because he’s amassed vastly superior fundraising which allowed him to do so. Something the Supers are no doubt considering.
Since Tuesday they’ve gone 3-1 for him. So far they don’t really seem to be buying Hillary’s arguments, including her rediculous MI popular vote one.
But she’ll still stay in so she can roll him in WV and KY, so she can try and run up the score in Puerto Rico.
Hillary and Bill will continue to destroy him for McCain.
In any event, Obama will not let Hillary have the nomination. He’d cut a deal with Gore or some other acceptable white guy before he’d let her take it from him.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:47 am
It really makes no sense for Hillary or Bill to let Obama become President.
First it would end their chances at returning to the White House.
Secondly Obama is unfit to be President. Even Hillary notices this when she refuses to say he’s fit to be commander in chief. She says that for political reasons but darned if she doesn’t believe it.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Also, Obama will never be McGovern. When Nixon won in 1972, the electoraye was close to 90% white, with Reagan in 1980 and 1984 it was in the high 80s. In 2004 it was 77 and this year it’ll probably be closer to 75.
What does that mean. If Bush got the same results in 2004 with a Nixon/Reagan era turnout he would have had closer to 58% of the vote than 51%. There’s just fewer voters out there for Republicans to win. Our pool is shrinking while theirs is growing.
With a 75% white turnout, it will be virtually impossible for the GOP to approach Nixon/Reagan level victories ever again. Bush’s 51% is around the most Republicans will ever be able to get for the foreseeable future.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Wait a minute jim, do you really mean to say that Republicans cannot appeal to minorities?
I’d hate for swing voters to read your comment.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:18 am
And remember, Sullivan is a conservative. Indeed the only one!!!
April 25th, 2008 at 7:50 am
McCain was only losing to Obama by 6 in the more accurate SurveyUSA. But do these poor Ras numbers mean Tpaw may not be McCain’s VP pick?
April 25th, 2008 at 7:55 am
I emailed Andrew Sullivan this:
His answer: “no”
putting things into context, the last book Mr.Sullivan wrote is named “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back”. Conservative my foot.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Analyzing just the polls in April from all the states in a matchup between McCain and Obama, I got the following results:
McCain would have 254 electoral votes.
Obama would have 205 electoral votes.
79 electoral votes are a tossup.
If McCain can win the states he currently is polling ahead in, then Obama will be in a very tough situation. He would have to sweep almost all of the tossup states.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m from Iowa and grew up in WI. THe upper midwest is hard to understand if you have lived your life on the coast. They often try to dump MN/IA/WI in with what they consider a typical midwest state. All three states lean blue in presidential politics and only when the Dems put up a truly unlikeable candidate do these three states become competitive. (IA less so then WI,MN) Obama takes MN, WI, and IA off the table if he is the nominee. McCain would be better off trying to swing NJ then MN/WI if Obama is the nominee. A Hillary nomination immediately puts all three is play because she is generally disliked to most upper midwest voters. The best way I can explain it: Hillary is like Kerry to the upper midwest. Obama is like Bill Clinton in 1992 in the upper midwest.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:51 am
“No wonder he won Minnesota.â€
Well, it was his homestate, a state that at the time was much more Democratic than it is today, a state where he worked for Hubert Humphrey’s campaign, then he was Attorney General for four years, then U.S. Senator for 12, before going on to be Vice President, and he only carried MN by 6,000 votes in ’84.
MN has a large % of independent voters. It is a true swing state in every sense of the word, with it being slightly populist, depending on what the issues are in a particular year.
Voters here have a history of splitting their tickets.
In 84, and in ’88 , Rudy Boscwitz and Dave Durenberger won reelection to their respective senate seats, both decisively, btw.
In ’06, the DFL won a 60%+ of the seats in our MN House of Representatives, capturing the majority for the first time since 1996, but they only won 5,000 votes more statewide than Republicans, with Gov. Pawlenty winning by about 21,000 votes statewide. Obama is very popular among independet voters, especially the younger ones, but McCain is popular too, and he will get crossover votes from Democrats who will not vote for Obama under any circumstance, especially from the part of the state I grew up in (Southwest/West Central mn, north of the MN river). These counties(Yellow Medicine, Lac Qui Parle, Renville, Big Stone) that border SD and SW MN have been voting DFL for fourty years, while the counties just south of them, south of the Minnesota River, all the way to the IA border, are more Republican (like Lyon and Redwood Counties). These counties, especially Lac Qui Parle and Big Stone, would be prime HIllary Country if she were the nominee, and McCain is the only kind of Republican they would vote for if Obama is the nominee (the issues of race, age, and expereince would be the factor here…remember, a very high % if white elderly citizens live here).
When McCain campaigns here, and has a stronger presence here, his numbers will go up. He should perform better than Bush’s numbers in the 1st and 2nd ring suburbs too. McCain will not underperform Bush’s ’04 numbers by much . I wouldn’t overanalyze just one poll and then write off the state…
April 25th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Good post, I agree. Even if the Dems do catch on, it is too late. They
are stuck with Obama. I don’t think we have reached the critical mass
of crazy people to elect Obama yet. Maybe eight years down the road,
but not quite yet. If Hillary were the nominee, I would be a lot more
worried.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:58 am
“Our pool is shrinking while theirs is growing.” Wait until the illegals are given the right to vote. Then we do have a big problem. To be quite honest, that is one reason why people like Mitt continually insist that they are given no special treatment, have to go to the back of the line, etc. That’s why work permits are ok, but not an easy and quick path to citizenship. He and others would rather have people not so prone to be democrats coming here seeking citizenship. Otherwise, we quickly become a one party nation, or in order to keep two parties, they become liberal and moderate, with the conservatives nowhere to go.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The difference in turnout for Hillary and Obama won’t be anything at all in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The fight will be the suburbs, and I strongly believe that McCain will increase his margins in Greater MN over Bush’s 04 numbers.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Hey guys, I want to call everyone’s attention to Peggy Noonan’s article in today’s (April 25) Wall Street Journal Online, so DaveG’s posting looks like as good a place as any. Peggy is often times a bit frothy and inclined toward rhetorical drama but this piece is on target nonetheless:
The View From Gate 14
April 25, 2008
America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention. America left its ticket and passport in the jacket in the bin in the X-ray machine, and is admonished. America is embarrassed to have put one one-ounce moisturizer too many in the see-through bag. America is irritated that the TSA agent removed its mascara, opened it, put it to her nose, and smelled it. Why don’t you put it up your nose and see if it explodes? America thinks.
And, as always: Why do we do this when you know I am not a terrorist, and you know I know you know I am not a terrorist? Why this costly and harassing kabuki when we both know the facts, and would agree that all this harassment is the government’s way of showing “fairness,” of showing that it will equally humiliate anyone in order to show its high-mindedness and sense of justice? Our politicians congratulate themselves on this as we stand in line.
Corbis
All the frisking, beeping and patting down is demoralizing to our society. It breeds resentment, encourages a sense that the normal are not in control, that common sense is yesterday. Another thing: It reduces the status of that ancestral arbiter and leader of society, the middle-aged woman. In the new fairness, she is treated like everyone, without respect, like the loud ruffian and the vulgar girl on the phone. The middle-aged woman is the one spread-eagled over there in the delicate shell beneath the removed jacket, praying nothing on her body goes beep and makes people look.
America makes it through security, gets to the gate, waits. The TV monitor is on. It is Wolf Blitzer. He is telling us with a voice of urgency of the Pennsylvania returns. But no one looks up. We are a nation of Willie Lomans, dragging our rollies through acres of airport, going through life with a suitcase and a slack jaw, trying to get home after a long day of meetings, of moving product.
No one in crowded gate 14 looks up to see what happened in Pennsylvania. No one. Wolf talks to the air. Gate 14 is small-town America, a mix, a group of people of all classes and races brought together and living in close proximity until the plane is called, and America knows what Samuel Johnson knew. “How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.”
Gate 14 doesn’t think any one of the candidates is going to make their lives better. Gate 14 will vote anyway, because they know they are the grownups of America and must play the role and do the job.
* * *
So: Pennsylvania. As seen from the distance of West Texas, central California and Oklahoma, which is where I’ve been.
Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama’s problem. America is Mr. Obama’s problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men’s Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter’s Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There’s gold in that history.
John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa’s knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92.
Mr. Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America? That’s why people talk about the flag pin absent from the lapel. They wonder if it means something. Not that the presence of the pin proves love of country – any cynic can wear a pin, and many cynics do. But what about Obama and America? Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all?
Another challenge. Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they’re questioning its content, its fullness. Gate 14 has a right to hear this. They’d lean forward to hear.
This is an opportunity, for Mr. Obama needs an Act II. Act II is hard. Act II is where the promise of Act I is deepened, the plot thickens, and all is teed up for resolution and meaning. Mr. Obama’s Act I was: I’m Obama. He enters the scene. Act III will be the convention and acceptance speech. After that a whole new drama begins. But for now he needs Act II. He should make his subject America.
* * *
Here’s some comfort for him, for all Democrats. In Lubbock, Texas – Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president’s poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one.
He has left on-the-ground conservatives – the local right-winger, the town intellectual reading Burke and Kirk, the old Reagan committeewoman – feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone.
This will have impact down the road.
I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, but it wasn’t that way in 2000, or 1992, or 1996, or even ’04.
I think it is a manifestation of dislike for and disappointment in Mr. Bush. It is a turning away that is a turning back. It is a looking back to conservatism when conservatism was clear, knew what it was, was grounded in the facts of the world.
The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma’s hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don’t like it. I’m certain Gate 14 doesn’t.
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