Obama Takes Control of the Democratic Race; Obama and McCain Outline General Election Themes

Barack Obama has taken control of the Democratic race due to the stunning results in the VA, DC, and MD primaries. Obama was supposed to win these primaries by a pretty big margin. By the last set of polls, he was up about 17%. But when the results came in at 27% … the game changed. Obama is going to net something like 25 extra delegates above and beyond the expected 20-25. Those extra delegates will more than offset a 10 point Clinton victory in Texas. Effectively, Clinton lost Texas along with VA, MD, and DC yesterday.

Here are the ramifications of the extra delegates won last night:
1. Even if Clinton is able to get her expected victories in TX, OH, and PA, she will NEVER get the lead in pledged delegates. In fact, I now expect her to lose in pledged delegates by 90 or so. And that’s assuming that the demographic trends that happened in VA don’t extend to other states.
2. This effectively takes the scenario where Obama wins in pledged delegates but loses due to superdelegates out of play. Furthermore it’s hard to believe that Clinton’s 90 superdelegate lead will hold up if everyone knows that there is virtually no chance that she will regain the pledged delegate lead.

Bottom line: This is now Obama’s race to lose.

So where does Obama go from here? I believe he foreshadowed his approach in last night’s speech in Madison, WI.

Obama’s Themes for the Stretch Run to Denver:

Obama was able to break into Clinton’s coalition in the Potomac Primaries. The $40K/year and under white males were the group that will be key going into states like WI, TX, OH, and PA. As CNBC’s Andrea Mitchell quipped, “White Men Can Jump … to the Obama coalition!”. But in order to continue that trend, Obama will have to stress his economic program and how it helps the blue collar Democrats. This theme was stressed in Obama’s speech last night:

“… Because at a time when so many people are struggling to keep up with soaring costs in a sluggish economy, we know that the status quo in Washington just won't do. Not this time. Not this year. We can't keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result – because it's a game that ordinary Americans are losing.

It's a game where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and our planet is put at risk. That's what happens when lobbyists set the agenda, and that's why they won't drown out your voices anymore when I am President of the United States of America.

It's a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That's what happens when the American worker doesn't have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that's why we need a President who will listen to Main Street – not just Wall Street; a President who will stand with workers not just when it's easy, but when it's hard. …”

Obama’s Themes for the General Election

And to set some themes for the fall campaign, Obama struck a chord that will resonate with Republicans and Democrats alike. He didn’t argue against the war, but instead against spending for the war. Even the most hawkish conservatives will freely admit that they can’t abide the costs of the war in Iraq.

Obama then went on to point to McCain’s vote against the Bush tax cuts (a little salt for the wounds of fiscal conservatives). He underlined McCain’s rationale for not supporting the tax cuts at the time. This accomplished two things: first, it lends credibility to Obama’s argument that the tax cuts need to be rolled back. Second, it challenges McCain to either re-affirm his position as a maverick that does what he believes is right (the McCain that most of his fans like) or to position himself as a conservative establishment candidate (which the Republican base would love, but would probably spell disaster for the McCain presidential campaign).

“If we had chosen a different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan, and put more resources into the fight against bin Laden; and instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges – and that's what the American people need us to do right now.

And I admired Senator McCain when he stood up and said that it offended his "conscience" to support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war; that he couldn't support a tax cut where "so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate." But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels, because now he's all for them.

Well I'm not. We can't keep spending money that we don't have in a war that we shouldn't have fought. We can't keep mortgaging our children's future on a mountain of debt. We can't keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace. It's time to turn the page”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/us/politics/12text-obama.html?_r=1&fta=y&oref=slogin


The Failed Clinton Strategy … is it About the Money?

Clinton’s strategy of abandoning / conceding states cost her once more. The “Big State” strategy has been used successfully many times. However, that strategy doesn’t work when you get your clock cleaned in the small states. If Clinton was even competitive in the caucus states and the Potomac primaries, this race would be over by now. There’s no way that this can be intentional. Campaign funds must be an issue on the Clinton side.

One last comment on the Clinton Campaign, I don’t believe that the statement made by Clinton endorser Ed Rendell to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette yesterday was a coincidence or an accident:

“"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate,"”

I believe this was intentionally put out by the Clinton Campaign on the eve of Obama’s big win in the Potomac primaries in an attempt to mitigate the perceived damage of the losses. Clearly they anticipated that the white voters would support Clinton as they had in previous primaries. This was basically the same divisive racial strategy used when it became apparent that Clinton wouldn’t win in SC. This is interesting because the strategy backfired in SC, yet Clinton re-tooled it and used it again. Again the result will be a net negative for the Clinton campaign. They guessed wrong, and they look bad for trying it.


McCain Doesn’t Believe in Miracles

I’ll have to hand it to Huckabee. He nearly pulled off a miracle in VA. He was greatly helped by a massive crossover of Republicans and Independents to vote in the Democratic primary. The crossover left an electorate composed mainly of evangelical conservatives … who voted for Huck. VA was a winner-take-all state so the win would have been a major coup for Huckabee. But alas, it was not to be. McCain narrowly pulled out the victory.

I predicted in an earlier post that Huckabee would be out of the race before yesterday. At the time, I couldn’t understand why staying in would be a good idea. I still don’t. However, Huckabee can clearly make his presence felt in Wisconsin and Texas. I’m not sure why that’s a good thing. It will be interesting to find out what Huckabee was thinking post-mortem.

But let’s get back to John McCain. McCain, in his victory speech also started to lay out themes for the fall. First, he made the classic Republican argument:

“… But now comes the hard part, and for America, the much bigger decision. We do not yet know for certain who will have the honor of being the Democratic Party's nominee for President. But we know where either of their candidates will lead this country, and we dare not let them. They will promise a new approach to governing, but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government's failures is to simply make it bigger. They will appeal to our dreams of a better future for ourselves, our families and our country, but they would take from us more of the wealth we have earned to build those dreams and assure us that government is better able than we are to make decisions about our future for us. They will promise to break with the failed politics of the past, but will campaign in ways that seek to minimize their exposure to questions from the press and challenges from voters who ask more from their candidates than an empty promise of "trust me, I know better." They will paint a picture of the world in which America's mistakes are a greater threat to our security than the malevolent intentions of an enemy that despises us and our ideals; a world that can be made safer and more peaceful by placating our implacable foes and breaking faith with allies and the millions of people in this world for whom America, and the global progress of our ideals, has long been "the last, best hope of earth."

We will offer different ideas, based in a better understanding of the challenges we face, and the resolve to confront them with confidence in the strength and ideals of free people. We believe that Americans, not our detractors and certainly not our enemies, are on the right side of history. We trust in the strength, industry and goodness of the American people. We don't believe that government has all the answers. We believe that government must respect the rights, property and opportunities of the people to whom we are accountable. We don't believe in growing the size of government to make it easier to serve our own ambitions. We believe that what government is expected to do, what we cannot do for ourselves individually, it must do with competence, resolve and wisdom.

The American people don't send us to Washington to serve our self-interest, but to serve theirs. They don't send us to fight each other for our own political ambitions; but to fight together our real enemies. They don't send us to Washington to stroke our egos; but to help them keep this beautiful, bountiful, blessed country safe, prosperous, proud and free. They don't send us to Washington to take more of their money, and waste it on things that add not an ounce to America's strength and prosperity; that don't help a single family realize the dreams we all dream for our children; that don't help a single displaced worker find a new job, and the security and dignity it assures them; that won't keep the promise we make to young workers that the retirement they have begun to invest in, will be there for them when they need it. They don't send us to Washington to do their job, but to do ours; to do it better and with less of t heir money… ”

McCain then went on to argue against Obama whom he now knows for the first time is his likely opponent in the fall. Of course his argument was similar to the Clinton argument that has worked to some degree … that Obama is style but not substance. But McCain went further. He insinuated that Obama was seeking self-glorification and considered himself “anointed by history”. I found this argument to be interestingly personal.

“… Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.

To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn't understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

In that confrontation I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but that neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the difference in the world.

I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need. I seek the presidency with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me. I am running to serve America, and to champion the ideas I believe will help us do what every American generation has managed to do: to make in our time, and from our challenges, a stronger country and a better world. …”

McCain then concluded by mocking an Obama standard closing line:

“I am fired up and ready to go”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/us/politics/12text-mccain.html?pagewanted=2&sq&st=nyt&scp=4

I’m guessing that McCain is looking for something that the conservative base can hate about Obama. It’s been said many times in this campaign that Hillary would be “the one thing that would energize and unite Republicans in the Fall”. For whatever reason, Hillary is disliked by the conservative base and reviled on conservative talk radio. However, Obama is only disliked for his policy differences. So McCain threw a couple of things against the wall in his speech and we’ll see if anything sticks.

One thing’s for sure, the threat of poor Republican turnout in the fall is very real. So at this point … anything that excites the Republican base would be a good thing.