And with the upcoming contests highly spaced, Obama will have PLENTY of time to focus on educating voters (unlike Super Tuesday where there was just too much ground to cover).

Great post. Space them out. Wait til tomorrow to talk about the hispanic vote:

Obama 55!

The Clintons 45!

This is a decisive victory for both Obama and mild peppers.

And with the upcoming contests highly spaced, Obama will have PLENTY of time to focus on educating voters (unlike Super Tuesday where there was just too much ground to cover).

Great post. Space them out. Wait til tomorrow to talk about the hispanic vote:

Obama 55!

The Clintons 45!

This is a decisive victory for both Obama and mild peppers.

A savvy reader emails, yeesh, what about all of us savvy posters who (cough cough me) made similar statements on other threads? I think a lot of Hillary supporters just are not as engaged. Both of my parents support Hillary. My father was a Middle school principal, has a Masters degree, is very intelligent, but is just not engaged in politics. He knows full well which Governor in Pa was good for education (far more than I) but beyond that not much more. Where I watch CNN he will watch the sixers. Fair enough. I find it interesting that the people who are most engaged in politics find Hillary the most offputting. I have watched ardent Hillary supporters of a year ago turned into being against her because of how terribly she is running her campaign. NeedI mention my parents live in Pa. If my father abandons Hillary, then she is toast. My mother I leave out of it, she doesn't like Obama because she doesn't like Oprah. I love my mother, but when it comes to politics she is useless. So based on my mother I have to think Hillary has a rock solid base, how big is the question.

Putting aside for a moment the election and its eventual outcome and what, if it were to occur, an Obama Presidency would be like: what must surely be going through the minds of many black Americans at this moment, watching the returns, realizing that, yes, a lot of black voters are lifting Obama but also a lot of white voters? White men! In a thousand precincts in Virginia and elsewhere where, in their lifetimes, black men feared to tread. (And sometimes still do, and sometimes still with good reason.) There are a few, eminently valid reasons to hate America, but far many more to love it. The precincts of Virginia on a chilly evening in February 2008 are one of the latter.

Tired but not yet finished we shrug, slowly stand, and attend to the work that remains to be done, the work that stretches out to infinity before us, the work we love to do, if we'd care to admit it.

As Obama put it once with a grin, "to know me is to love me!" - I think it's true. I've never seen it go the other way, that is, someone start out an Obama supporter and then drop him as more information came in.

Did you notice McCain's speech? He was slamming hope and aspiration and platitudinousness all over the place. Apparently, he thinks an Obama wind is blowing.

Psantillana:

Ha - did he really say that?

He really did, and I thought he was smarter than that. Does McCain really want to run as the anti-Hope candidate?

"This is a decisive victory for both Obama and mild peppers."

Yes, but mild peppers will lose big time in Texas. You can't make chili with mild peppers. And, as we have all been informed, Texas is the only primary state that really counts.

Pivoting off the great point Mike's correspondent made --is it possible that Ted Kennedy (and the

epic:  Yes, McCain is running against Obama.  I listened to both speeches on the radio, and thought, it will be Obama v. McCain and Obama will win.

McCain's speech was very interesting.  Maybe it was recycled, but I hadn't heard his stump speech before.  He opened by saying, "We dare not, we *dare* not" let either of the Democrats win -- a sharp contrast with Obama's opening words about McCain:  "He's a true hero, and we honor his service," or something to that effect.

McCain proceeded to make a pretty lame case for why we "dare not" elect a Democrat.  He tried some "soft on our enemies" stuff, some "America's not the problem" stuff, and some "government's not the solution" stuff, and peppered in a fair amount about taxes, but these stale lines didn't seem to describe either of the Democratic candidates.  He didn't land anything.  He didn't do an '04 Bill Clinton, who gave the second best speech at the convention:  "If you believe [insert horrible thing], vote for [insert opponent].  If you believe [insert second horrible thing], vote for [insert opponent]," and so on.  He seemed to lack not only ethusiasm but conviction in this mode, as if he didn't really believe that we dare not elect a Democrat.  What's more, he sounded like he was on the wrong side:  They'll promise x, he said; they'll promise y; they'll talk a great game; they'll tell you everything you want to hear, etc.  Very defensive.  He didn't bring it home.  He didn't explain why those promises were empty or impossible.  Furthermore, he just made me wonder, Okay, so what do *you* want to do?  Telling the American people that everything they want is stupid and impossible and that the status quo is dandy is not how you win this election when the status quo has a 30 percent approval rating.

His next target was Obama's "platitudes" and, in his telling, arrogance -- e.g., "*I* don't think history has made me the savior of the country," or something like that.  This is basically HRC's empty-suit-where's-the-beef approach, which isn't working for her, and she does it a lot better than McCain, who once again didn't seem personally convinced of his own attack lines.  (He may well be convinced, but is just bad at delivering them in a measured way.  We know he has a temper.)  Besides, I had just heard Obama riff brilliantly on hope, taking on this false-hope charge in a portion of his speech that was classic Obama -- thematic but convincing and sincere.  He made the argument that the hope he was offering was not only real hope, but vital to accomplishing anything.  Cynicism = giving up.  Hope = fighting.  I thought it was very robust, and made the nay-sayers seem petty.

The rest of McCain's speech was very nice; I was actually nodding agreement with the sentiments expressed.  But they were not especially Republican sentiments or sentiments that Obama doesn't share.  There was a great line I wish I could remember about shared American values binding us together.  There was a discussion of comradeship, drawing from his experiences, and an analogy to citizenship.  The notions, at times, sounded almost Obama-esque.  Meanwhile, at no time did McCain mention a single specific policy goal (except, sort of, cutting taxes), nor did he defend any position on any issue.

I know it's just a couple of speeches, and the nomination on the Democratic side is hardly locked up, but I felt that I got a glimpse tonight of how things might play out, and it didn't look good for McCain.

VA - yes, I saw it somewhere, and I'm almost certain it was during the campaign in Iowa, and I seem to remember it as being part of an answer to a question in an interview - like "how do you account for your poll numbers increasing here yet staying the same nationally?"

Your father sounds like a smart man Blackton...Sixers versus haggling pundits or reading the likes of me on a website somewhere? A no brainer - so to speak. We political junkies are freaks.

jhildner  and yard great posts.

I wish the worst possible humiliation on the Clintons.  No living American couple deserves it more.

Only, I was hoping for it in November.  This is premature.

1) Jesse Jackson won working class whites in Wisconsin in 1988.  Believe it.  I was at UW at the time and I believe Jackson won a higher % of white votes in Wisconsin than in any other State.  While there is definitely racism in the State, it also has the same Upper Midwest history of tolerance you see in Iowa and Minnesota.  Call it the Joshua Glover factor.  en.wikipedia.org/.../Joshua_Glover.  Obama should clean up there.  Easily double digits.    

2) There is a point where interests of upper class black people and working class whites start to meet.  Actually, there are lots of obvious points, but there is a Bill Cosby nexus.  Early on, upper middle class black people said (quietly) that while having an African-American candidate was nice,  the symbolism of Obama's ascendancy was most important to show poor and working class blacks that education and family could overcome any real or perceived racism.  Recently, two  white men expressed the same sentiment to me.  One said it in sort of the same way the black people did.  The other said it with a meaner, maybe-they-will-stop-complaining tone.  Either way,  I don't think we should assume that only black and upper class white people will vote for Obama MOSTLY because of what he symbolizes.  

Yes, BillyYard, it's amazing.  White American males disdain a corrupt, hypocritical, arrogant, political, hustler couple who are white.  

Yet they like an intelligent, articulate, sincere, charismatic young politician who is black.  And even vote for the man with their...votes.

How the hell can this be happening in the land of white bigotry and imperialism, the people-of-color exploiting capital of the world, populated mainly by white jingoistic, xenophobic chauvinists?

Obviously, somebody is manipulating the voting machines.

OOPS. I meant to say that it ALMOST went for Jackson in '88 and that he won a higher % of white votes than any place else.

I posted this comment above by accident.  I meant to post it here;

This idea that Obama has a growing "coalition" of small demographic subgroups is somewhat patronizing and probably oversimplifies, in the sense that the easily measured characteristics (race/ethnicity, gender, age, religion, income category, education level) are NOT driving voter preferences anywhere near as much as factors that are unobservable to the typical pollster.

What is the evidence?  Each demographic trend breathlessly commented on and repeated by political writers and bloggers seems to disappear within one or two weeks and the writers/bloggers just say that the winds have shifted or the candidate has reached out more to this formerly disaffected, distrustful, or disgruntled demographic group, without questioning hte original analysis.  Social scientists are trained to say "maybe we were wrong" in the face of accumulating evidence.  On the other hand, if you keep claiming that the coalition is changing, then you can never be wrong.

I'm waiting for the writers/bloggers to start saying that Hillary's "support base" consists of left-handed white male Baptists and then two weeks later revise it to say left-handed white male Baptist former Presidents born in Arkansas.

For decades political scientists have been studying and trying to understand voter preferences, ideological formation, party identification, and ballot choice.  I don't think we've come very far.  We're still stuck on correlations that can be translated into "Hispanics don't like the black guy" and "the female candidate attracts little old ladies."

With two candidates whose positions are close together, the press needs to focus in on and magnify the differences that do exist (subsidized near-universal health care vs. mandated universal coverage; spoke against the war and later moderated rhetoric vs. voted to authorize and criticized the implementation) and differences in their preparation (e.g. Chicago organizer versus child advocate; political wife versus University of Chicago law professor; Alan Keyes vs. Rick Lazio).  By buying the campaign's slogans and repeating them, the press dumbs it down to "Obama= hope" and "Clinton=experience" and they both equal change and does everyone a disservice.  Then falling back on race, gender, ed, etc. they are just fumbling around and not making sense.

I'm rambling, sorry.  Haven't had coffee this morning. I meant to just make the point about left-handed baptists.

stgla, man, turn off your left brain and get in touch with your right one.

Do you really think any significant number of people are choosing between the candidates based on the arcane differences between their government health care plans?

Both primaries for both parties have come down to choices about personalities and perceived character.  Quite true on the GOP side.  Starkly so on the Dem.

Do you really think that if the media suddenly (and not likely) focussed entirely on the differences between Hillary's and Obama's policies that a meaningful number of voters would judge on that basis?

Th truth is, policies and platforms are ephemeral.  And what was a big deal during a campaign has a way of disappearing for a variety of reasons after a new president takes office.  Remember, for instance the "missile gap" of old?  And did Bush talk much about fighting terror in 2000?

If you've ever done any major hiring for a company, you'll remember that after you've reviewed track records and qualifications, the real decision came down to your gut feelings about the actual people in question.  

Same with hiring a president.

Chan, I have had a hand in a lot major hiring for a company and I look exclusively at qualifications.   Ability to work with others is a qualification, of course.  I would never hire an asshole with a good resume.  My main point had to do with the salience of voter demographics than whether voters decide on the basis of policy differences.

Well, then, stgla, maybe better not hire me for not reading you carefully enough.

Now, I've gone back and re-read your post.  Are you saying that the media ought to focus on the policy differences to see if the nuances between them are what's driving the votes, now apparently towards Obama?

I'd say that tween Obama and Clinton it's not that complicated.  He's a naturally attractive figure, she's not.  She had a stronger brand originally, but the people who discovered Obama earlier, who tended to be upscale types who followed politics, were taken by him.

Now, as the campaign heats up and Obama is exposed more, lots of people are taking to him.  He's young, articulate and charming.  She's starting to show here age (i.e. she's an old lady of 61) and she was never very charming to begin with.

Given that their policies seem pretty much the same, except on the big one-- the war-- which he can claim always to have opposed and she voted for-- naturally a lot of Democrats now have permission to abandon her.

The only thing that was keeping Hillary ahead before was that she was seen as more electable.  Now, as he keeps being the one who's getting elected, her "electability" is coming heavily into question.

I wouldn't overthink this one stgla.  I think I'm with you on one thing, the demographic affiinity thing is going to prove specious in this case.  As in virtually all modern presidential elections, the choice usually comes down to which guy would you prefer to have a beer with.

Tween Hillary and Obama, I'll take my beer with Obama.  Tween Hillary and McCain, I'll take my beer with McCain.  Tween Obama and McCain, that gets more interesting.  Then it comes down to a more nuanced taste in drinking companions.  McCain, unlike Hillary, is not without natural charm.

McCain for a whisky, Obama for a beer.

Kinky Friedman for a whisky while strolling down Main Street at the head of a parade. (Kinky's riposte to outraged opponent: "I drank but I didn't swallow")

teplhuh, I'm with you.  A true, blue (right color) Kinky supporter.  Loved his website when he ran for TexGuv.