Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama: Of the two, who do you like?

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Well, just about every black person who votes will vote for him, at least that is what the D primaries and the major polls show. So, if the blacks come out and vote for him, which they have done in spades, and he gets most of the rest of the D vote, then he likely will defeat McCain. Interesingly, the black vote has not yet called Obama an "Uncle Tom" for rejecting a major black religious figurehead who apparently is racist against whites and jews. If that happens, Obama will get a resounding defeat come Nov.

Well, in recent history, blacks have always gone for the Dem candidate by an overwhelming majority in the national presidential race. So, yes, no matter which Dem gets the nomination, the black vote is almost in the bag. But what is troubling about Obama is that his popularity seems to be limited mainly to the small traditionally red states that have a relatively small number of Democrats. So even though he has stirred up huge numbers of voters in states with high black concentrations like Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, it is ultimately useless because these states will go red in November. And for that matter, the vast majority of the states he won in the primary will also go red in November. His inability to connect with Catholics, white women and white blue collar workers in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida basically means that he will not be able to muster the number of electoral college votes to win against McCain. Add to this the fact that he has essentially disenfranchised Michigan and Florida by blocking their say in the Dem nominee process. By contrast, not only does Hillary have a much better chance of winning the battleground states, she actually has a chance of capturing traditionally red states like Kentucky and West Virginia in the presidential election.

I realize that Hillary is polarizing and that half of the Democratic party hates her, and that some of her positions are dubious at best. But the cold hard reality is the fact that she is the Democratic party's best chance of winning in November. And if the superdelegates would pull their heads out of Obama's arse long enough to think rationally, they would back the stronger candidate. This is not an issue of personal preference; it's an issue of tactical strategy to recapture the White House, period.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

He cannot and will not win the general election. He is a one term senator with little real experience. Mainstream America sees him as either a devotee of a church that supports Louis Farrakahn or even worse, a Muslim.
I think it's wonderful that the Dems are willing to nominate an African American and or a woman for president. But that is also one of the party's fatal flaws. It sometimes has too tight a grip on it's idealism.
I have a very bad feeling about this. I think it's going to make the McGovern and Dukakis bids look like a pony ride. I hope I'm wrong about all of this.

He didn't even complete his one term! And most of that time he voted "present." I do think all of this talk about him being Muslim and supporting Farrakhan is rather silly. However, if his whole campaign is based upon his ability to make good decisions, his associations are not helping matters.

I fear that the damage has already been done and that the Dem party will be too divided to get it together by November. As much as Clinton has been accused of being divisive, look at Obama's tactics! All of this taunting and bullying Clinton to drop out of the race, even though he has not secured the nomination and she is barely behind him in the popular vote, did not exactly give Clinton supporters the warm and fuzzies. And the fact that Obama chose to ignore the MI and FL Dems is quite telling- he operates based on what is best for him rather than on what is best for the people. If the tables were turned, and they were talking about not seating the NC and Georgia delegation, you know Al Sharpton would be rioting in the streets. And the mainstream media has helped create the illusion of this golden child and has made it appear that he was somehow winning in a landslide, even though he is only ahead by a couple of percentage points in the popular vote. No matter the outcome, unless there is a "dream ticket" of Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama, I think there is going to be a lot of angst and party defection. It truly is disgusting how this has all played out, and IMHO, I think the Obama camp shoulders most of the blame.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

. . . and IMHO, I think the Obama camp shoulders most of the blame.

RACIST

In the end, I think the D's will rally around Obama, if he gets it. I also think that the blacks will come out of the woodwork to vote for him and he will get some of the white vote as he did in the primary. I also think he is smooth and cagey enough to get around McCain, who is not. Personally, the running mates of either may prove more interesting and influential.

I also think it is important to remember that pretty much every national poll condicted in the last few months has Obama beating McCain. They are not dispositive. But, they show that the race is his to lose as of now.

I want to clarify that I do not think Obama is worse than any of the other three. I am just saying that his lack of really doing anything to its fruition will harm him when weighed against a rather moderate senior senator and former POW.

Only time will tell.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

And we know that the black vote hasn't been surpressed over the last two presidential election cycles. While I agree he may win with the numbers, we may never actualy know about it.

I don't know. I am pretty sure the D will make damn sure that places like Harlem have enough voting machines. But, I suppose we'll see.

[dontlookdown]

Obama will win the general election and for one simple reason:

Hillary Clinton has not been able to get a big enough chunk of the independent vote.
Independents have come out in lop-sided margins for Barack Obama - and that is why he will be elected in November with some surprising new swing states in play. Watch Colorado, Virginia, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and possibly Indiana.
His support has been broad - not unlike that of Reagan's when he was running for his first term.
The yellow pants suit express may have the poor/white/uneducated vote locked up, but elections aren't won with that bloc for Democrats. They are won by educated urban people in big cities along with swing voters.
All of the Appalachian states that Hillary is priding herself in winning will go to McCain anyway.
So her WV victory speech will be all about poor white dumb people tonight and she'll ride that wave until ultra-white Oregon goes overwhelmingly for Obama next week. Super-dels will continue to side with Obama every day until the last week of May when we can call it a day.

Educated Americans make the world go 'round. I find it pathetic to think that such a smart candidate like Clinton would alienate them from "day one". Given her background and education, it's hilarious to watch her call Obama elitist. He's worked his ass off and became the editor of the Harvard Law Review - credentials that are not unlike her own.

You will also find, my fine fellow political historians; that most of our presidents who we think of as "great"
did not go into office with what you define as experience. Often the most "experienced" first termers have ended up miserable failures.

I'm sure Lindsey Buckingham voted for Obama - but not so sure about Stevie.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

RACIST

In the end, I think the D's will rally around Obama, if he gets it. I also think that the blacks will come out of the woodwork to vote for him and he will get some of the white vote as he did in the primary. I also think he is smooth and cagey enough to get around McCain, who is not. Personally, the running mates of either may prove more interesting and influential.

I also think it is important to remember that pretty much every national poll condicted in the last few months has Obama beating McCain. They are not dispositive. But, they show that the race is his to lose as of now.

I want to clarify that I do not think Obama is worse than any of the other three. I am just saying that his lack of really doing anything to its fruition will harm him when weighed against a rather moderate senior senator and former POW.

Only time will tell.

BITCH!

I think it's very possible that we may have another 2000 situation in which Obama wins the popular vote, but McCain wins the electoral college vote. It really boils down to the battleground states where Obama is clearly losing.

Regarding the polls, there are some that have Obama ahead of McCain, others have him behind. In any event, it's very close. Those same polls, however, show that Clinton is consistently ahead of McCain by a larger percentage. I think the most interesting (and objective) analysis is at electoral-vote.com, which forecasts the electoral vote breakdown based on prevailing polling data. Interestingly, as of May 11:

An Obama vs. McCain contest has McCain winning 290 vs. Obama's 237 (11 tied)



A Clinton vs. McCain contest has Clinton winning 280 vs. McCain's 241 (17 tied)

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

Obama will win the general election and for one simple reason:

Hillary Clinton has not been able to get a big enough chunk of the independent vote.
Independents have come out in lop-sided margins for Barack Obama - and that is why he will be elected in November with some surprising new swing states in play. Watch Colorado, Virginia, Oregon, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and possibly Indiana.

I think it's hard to quantify exactly how much the Independents will factor into this. If the past is any indication, based upon the votes that Nader has gotten previously, they are perhaps 5-10% of the electorate . I think it's hasty to assume that they will all go Obama's way since McCain, in all is bearing-losing flip-floppery, is actively trying to distance himself from Bush and trying to take more moderate positions on the economy and the environment. Meanwhile, Obama may be perceived as being too liberal and inexperienced next to McCain. It's anyone's guess how they will factor in, but in my opinion, I think they may be split evenly between Obama and McCain.

His support has been broad - not unlike that of Reagan's when he was running for his first term.

You've got to be joking! It's that very demographic, the so-called "Reagan Democrats," that are coming out strongly for Hillary and shunning Obama.

The yellow pants suit express may have the poor/white/uneducated vote locked up, but elections aren't won with that bloc for Democrats.

You can also add to that the elderly, the Latinos, white women and Catholics. I would dare say that since she is perceived as being more right leaning than Obama, she may appeal to moderate Republicans who are just sick of Bush policies.

They are won by educated urban people in big cities along with swing voters.

What is a "swing voter?" If you are referring to swing states, current polls indicate that he is losing these states to McCain. Also, I disagree- the majority of adults in this country are not college educated, and the majority of people live in small towns and suburbs. Take a state like New Jersey. Not a single big city, yet it's one of the most densely populated and populous states in the country.

All of the Appalachian states that Hillary is priding herself in winning will go to McCain anyway.

West Virginia is actually favoring Hillary at the moment, and went blue for Bill Clinton for both of his terms. However, they were red in 2000 and 2004. Kentucky is a potential upset for Clinton.

Educated Americans make the world go 'round. I find it pathetic to think that such a smart candidate like Clinton would alienate them from "day one".

In what way has she specifically alienated educated Americans? Because she is showing pathos for working/lower middle class people? I guess you could say the same thing about John Edwards, whose entire raison d'etre is about abolishing poverty in the U.S.

Given her background and education, it's hilarious to watch her call Obama elitist. He's worked his ass off and became the editor of the Harvard Law Review - credentials that are not unlike her own.

I think his comments about guns speaks volumes about his disdain for bigoted white hicks. I'm not saying what he is saying is untrue, but it does come across as being decidedly self-superior. Obama says it all without Hillary having to say a word.

You will also find, my fine fellow political historians; that most of our presidents who we think of as "great"
did not go into office with what you define as experience. Often the most "experienced" first termers have ended up miserable failures.

And there are also numerous inexperienced presidents who were horrendous. Carter? Grant?

I'm sure Lindsey Buckingham voted for Obama - but not so sure about Stevie.

I'll bet he is a registered Republican! Stevie was probably too busy performing on Super Tuesday (seriously!), but I am sure Stevie would have voted Hillary. I am sure the fact that she has been invited by the Clintons to perform on multiple occasions has something to do with that.

[dontlookdown]

That electoral map on election night will look nothing like that. There's not a single poll, primary election result, or exit poll that supports either of those scenarios. Another thing to keep in mind:
whatever voters are feeling today will be completely different in November.


Today's Gallup national tracking poll puts Obama at 50% and Clinton at 43%.
In a McCain vs. Obama general election, today Gallup has Obama at 47% and McCain at 43%
In a McCain vs. Clinton general election, today Gallup has Clinton at 49% and McCain at 44%

Today's polling also reveal this:
voters believe Obama has a 90% chance of becoming the nominee.
voters believe Clinton has a 8.5% chance of becoming the nominee.

In the general election they think McCain has a 37.1% chance of winning,
Clinton has a 6.5% chance of winning, and Obama has a 55.5% chance of winning.

Interesting but take it with a grain of salt.
Historically Gallup has often been Republican-leaning.

Another look at how Obama could change the electoral map in November:

http://progressillinois.com/2008/05/...a-over-the-top

[dontlookdown]

some fun facts:

Buckingham is more liberal than the rest of the band put together.
New Jersey may not have any big cities (unless you consider Trenton big), but the state is home to millions of people that work in New York and Philadelphia. All those commuter towns in the suburbs are filled with Obama loving educated white people.


I've been loving Frank Rich's column in the New York Times. Here's a sample from earlier this year:

The Audacity of Hopelessness

By FRANK RICH
WHEN people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.

It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.

The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.

That’s why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance. But he’s actually not even all that loyal. Mr. Penn, whose operation has billed several million dollars in fees to the Clinton campaign so far, has never given up his day job as chief executive of the public relations behemoth Burson-Marsteller. His top client there, Microsoft, is simultaneously engaged in a demanding campaign of its own to acquire Yahoo.

Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.

Given that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer marginally different policy prescriptions — laid out in voluminous detail by both, by the way, on their Web sites — it’s not clear what her added-value message is. The “experience” mantra has been compromised not only by her failure on the signal issue of Iraq but also by the deadening lingua franca of her particular experience, Washingtonese. No matter what the problem, she keeps rolling out another commission to solve it: a commission for infrastructure, a Financial Product Safety Commission, a Corporate Subsidy Commission, a Katrina/Rita Commission and, to deal with drought, a water summit.

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because “they disproportionately favor upper-income voters” who “don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change.” After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn’t won in “any of the significant states” outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the “insult 40 states” strategy.

The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.

If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.

The other persistent gripe among some Clinton supporters is that a hard-working older woman has been unjustly usurped by a cool young guy intrinsically favored by a sexist culture. Slate posted a devilish video mash-up of the classic 1999 movie “Election”: Mrs. Clinton is reduced to a stand-in for Tracy Flick, the diligent candidate for high school president played by Reese Witherspoon, and Mr. Obama is implicitly cast as the mindless jock who upsets her by dint of his sheer, unearned popularity.

There is undoubtedly some truth to this, however demeaning it may be to both candidates, but in reality, the more consequential ur-text for the Clinton 2008 campaign may be another Hollywood classic, the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy “Pat and Mike” of 1952. In that movie, the proto-feminist Hepburn plays a professional athlete who loses a tennis or golf championship every time her self-regarding fiancé turns up in the crowd, pulling her focus and undermining her confidence with his grandstanding presence.

In the 2008 real-life remake of “Pat and Mike,” it’s not the fiancé, of course, but the husband who has sabotaged the heroine. The single biggest factor in Hillary Clinton’s collapse is less sexism in general than one man in particular — the man who began the campaign as her biggest political asset. The moment Bill Clinton started trash-talking about Mr. Obama and raising the specter of a co-presidency, even to the point of giving his own televised speech ahead of his wife’s on the night she lost South Carolina, her candidacy started spiraling downward.

What’s next? Despite Mrs. Clinton’s valedictory tone at Thursday’s debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I’m starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a “victory.” Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge.

Well, I prefer Americanos to latte's and I don't wear Birkenstocks. As far as I know. But I'm off to test drive a Prius.
Later dudes.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

. . . I find it pathetic to think that such a smart candidate like Clinton would alienate them from "day one" . . . .

How exactly has she done this?

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

That electoral map on election night will look nothing like that. There's not a single poll, primary election result, or exit poll that supports either of those scenarios. Another thing to keep in mind:
whatever voters are feeling today will be completely different in November.


Today's Gallup national tracking poll puts Obama at 50% and Clinton at 43%.
In a McCain vs. Obama general election, today Gallup has Obama at 47% and McCain at 43%
In a McCain vs. Clinton general election, today Gallup has Clinton at 49% and McCain at 44%

Today's polling also reveal this:
voters believe Obama has a 90% chance of becoming the nominee.
voters believe Clinton has a 8.5% chance of becoming the nominee.

In the general election they think McCain has a 37.1% chance of winning,
Clinton has a 6.5% chance of winning, and Obama has a 55.5% chance of winning.

Interesting but take it with a grain of salt.
Historically Gallup has often been Republican-leaning.

Another look at how Obama could change the electoral map in November:

http://progressillinois.com/2008/05/...a-over-the-top

The gallup poll is flawed in the sense that it is polling purely popular vote, which, as you know, doesn't mean a hill of beans in November. It's the electoral college vote, especially in the swing states, that spells V-I-C-T-O-R-Y.

Also, consider what the Democratic primary map would look like if they adopted the winner-take-all rule like the GOP primary (and the electoral college). Clinton beats Obama handily!

And that progressillinois site is purely fiction. Their projections are based purely upon wishing and speculation. But their baseline map, i.e., the one based on today's reality, is that Obama is currently losing to McCain by a landslide.

[dontlookdown]

the winner take all electoral college count is meaningless for Obama vs. Clinton.
but it does get interesting when you consider November: Obama has turned out voters triple fold over McCain.
hopefully he'll keep the momentum.

a few weeks ago Obama was quoted as saying "Hillary is throwing the china at me".

do you think it was the china she stole from the White House?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

. . . I've been loving Frank Rich's column in the New York Times. Here's a sample from earlier this year . . . .

He is as vile and manipulative as Sean Hannity, though he has a better vocabulary. He also HATES any Clinton and likely would kick the hapless Chelseain the po po if given half the chance. It seemingly all stems back to Hillary's vote to authorize W to use force if SH failed to comply with the new (but really the same), UN sanctions based ont he unanimous and consistent thought regarding the WMD. So, I take his "facts" with little to no credit. I liked him better when he was reviewing Lupone in Anything Goes.

Notice he never once chides in any significant way Obama for playing the race card and/or negative politics - a rather Bill O'Reilly method I might ad.

In the end, no one can really point to anything Obama has done other than follow someone else's (usually Hillary's) lead. I mean exactly what legislation has he sonsored during his whopping two or so years in the US Senate?

The R's should be salivating at this, though they better figure out a way to stop the buses in Harlem, Watts, and the South from transporting the record numbers of IMO mostly blindly voting blacks to the polls.

I do agree with you that in some states, Obama will get much of the 20-35 year old white vote.

Will it be enough though.

[dontlookdown]

I'm still not quite sure why people are interested in John McCain.
I find him to be incredibly unexceptional.

Are voters really going to turn out for Grampa Munster over Barack Obama?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

the winner take all electoral college count is meaningless for Obama vs. Clinton.
but it does get interesting when you consider November: Obama has turned out voters triple fold over McCain.
hopefully he'll keep the momentum.

a few weeks ago Obama was quoted as saying "Hillary is throwing the china at me".

do you think it was the china she stole from the White House?

Um - please prove they actually legally sole anything. They did not. The people who packed their stuff included some things that did not belong to them, which I believe they promptly returned. Also, the GAO launched an investigation and found they sole nothing. Poor Arianna - rhetoric as usual.

It pisses me off when people like her use inuendo to imply fact. Frankly, she is richly better than that