Freaky Friday
The Friday Gallup Daily National Tracking Poll is out, and it shows a complete reversal from eight days before; then, Hillary was ahead by 7 points, 49% to 42%; today, Obama leads by that exact amount.
There are a couple of significant details to be found here. The last time Hillary was this far down (January 29th), she was still ahead of Obama by 6 points. This could lead to two interpretations, neither one good for Hillary. First, it could signal that Obama is capturing all of the undecideds while Hillary virtually stands still; or second, it could be that Obama is slowly siphoning off Hillary’s supporters and putting them in his pocket.
The second interpretation is more likely, once you account for the anomalous stretch between January 29 and February 2, where both candidates gained 5-6 points with neither losing any. This period represents Edward’s pullout from the race, where his supporters split between the two candidates almost equally. Other than that time, every Obama gain matches roughly to a Hillary loss. If you split Edwards’ supporters between Clinton and Obama from the start, the trends come out more clearly:
Even the mutual Clinton/Obama gain in early January can be matched to a 4-point loss by Edwards. What this all means is that, at least since early January, this has really been a fight between Clinton and Obama; Edwards lost his relevance some time before then.
And as an Obama-Clinton race, Obama has been doing very well; in the last month, despite a few one-day hiccups, he has been gaining steadily on Clinton. Now that he is ahead by a touchdown, it’s looking much better for him.
Of course, a lot of Obama’s new-found support is coming from states which have already voted; those switchers don’t matter in this race any more. So, the question becomes, how is Obama doing in the key future states–Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania?
Ohio:
Texas:
Pennsylvania:
Now, you’ll have to note not only the trend lines, but also the dots which represent the actual poll results. Ohio and Texas give a fairly accurate trend line, but notice that in Pennsylvania, Obama has closed the gap between himself and Hillary much more significantly then the trend lines would suggest. There also is no poll for Pennsylvania for the past week, a week in which Obama has made big gains.
While Obama does not exactly seem poised to take away all of these states, he could easily win Texas, and nothing is sure about Ohio or Pennsylvania. And remember, Hillary has to not only win these states, but win them by a comfortable margin. If she loses Texas, that could be big; while Ohio and Pennsylvania have 161 and 188 delegates respectively, Texas has 228. A loss in Texas could offset gains in Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially if Obama makes up more ground in those states.
And if that happens, Clinton will go into high gear to fight for Michigan and Florida delegates to be seated–using their current voided-primary numbers, which favor her considerably. This will probably be viewed as questionable, considering that Obama pulled out of Michigan’s race and Hillary did not, as well as because the states were duly warned (though it was Republicans in Florida that made the decision to violate the DNC’s rules) and alternatives offered. In fact, the DNC still has an open offer to fund caucuses in both states, which could be arranged for as late as June this year. If Hillary fights for both states to be counted, it is likely that the DNC will agree–but only in the form of later caucuses, which are by no means unprecedented: in ’96 and ’00, Delaware violated party rules and then held make-up caucuses, as D.C. did in 2004. And although party heads in both states are speaking negatively about such prospects, I feel it is much more likely that the DNC will be comfortable with not seating the two states’ delegates so long as they offer a viable alternative. After all, if the DNC caves, how likely will it be that their rules are followed in the future? Clinton may be out of luck on this one.
Hillary might also not be able to count on the super-delegates; already, some key delegates have either abandoned Hillary or fully switched over to the Obama side. GA Rep. John Lewis, a former civil rights leader, has been a key supporter of Clinton; he is now reportedly ready to back Obama, though there has been some fence-sitting involved, and nothing is clear yet. But a trend for the supers to lean to Obama is clearly in progress; it has been noted that the supers are the kind of people who like winners, and that seems to be Obama right now.
The trends is pulling away from Hillary. Every time you hear about her pulling some kind of shenanigans, like asking for the Florida delegates to be counted, or trying to marginalize Obama by comparing him to Jesse Jackson, causes revulsion from Democrats because it is absolutely rovian.
Democrats and independents will have little problem voting against her because she comes off so Rovian and Bushian. Might as well vote for the real thing at that point, which is another reason McCain polls so well against her.
I have to be careful here, because even though I like her as a person, and think maybe she’d be a decent President, and I actually think she’s a very good campaigner, and if she was up against almost anyone else, she might walk away with the nomination but she’s not. She’s up against Obama who is clearly the class leader in the field on so many levels. And she has such enormous, hyper negatives that I think her to be the worst possible candidate for the general election. So I have to be careful because I don’t favor her as the candidate. I am bias.
On top of Obama being an obviously good candidate, for these reasons I think things are trending and will continue to trend away from her. Democrats are slowly coming to the realization that she’s not a good candidate to put up against McCain.
Then there’s this, the megatrend:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17rich.html?ref=opinion
After reading that article, one comes away with the notion that, quite possibly, an Obama nomination could be more than a great victory, more than a land slide, what Frank Rich calls “a national route”.
We are talking about the possibility of vanquishing fore eternity the Neocons, Movement Conservativism and quite possibly the Republican party, in that order. I could live with a retooled Republican party, there always has to be an opposition, but movement conservativism and the Neocons have been the bane of this worlds existence.
This could make what happened to the Republicans 1964 and 1932 as a hiccup.
And for reasons I’ve stated in ancient posts, here and in other areas, the era of terrorism created for George Bush the opportunity to go down in history as perhaps the greatest person in history. He threw that opportunity away with both hands, preferring to fight vanity wars on his own as part of a much larger strategy to undo the new deal and concentrate wealth and power for the hear and now of his minority party. George Bush could have taken the global shock and disdain from 911 and lead a global coalition that could have created, both, a global Anti-Terror Alliance on par with what NATO was for the cold war, and on another level, work towards creating a global version of the European Community. Of course that would have meant agreeing to values he loathes.
The door is largely closed for an American president to do this. No one would trust us now. But Obama is the exception. A ‘national route’ would give us single payer universal health care, which by itself would lower cost of health care, releasing massive purchasing power into the economy stimulating a new cycle of economic growth – and when combined with sound financial, labor, energy and economic policies, creating Bill-Clintonian kind of growth. Armed with firm backing from the American people, Obama could rescue from the jaws of the abyss the kind of role that Bush threw away with both hands.
If that happens, 50 years from now, 2/3rds of the globe could be living in European Union like security and prosperity. The second half of this century would involve bringing that kind of comfort to the rest of the globe: Africa and Southwest Asia.
At that point, one hundred years from now, we can approach a human existence that looks increasingly like that depicted on Star Trek.
Imagine.
One final note. The problems involved in Southwest Asia have to do with Islam adjusting to, and adapting to modernism. This isn’t as impossible as it might seem. Modernism is centrifugal in concept – separation and specialization of task. Islam is pre-modern, it is cohesion in concept: one god, one prophet, one law, one community, one class of human beings etc… In premodern world cohesion, especially in warfare, was important, and that gave Islam a competitive edge, and encouraged it’s cohesive characteristics. As a legalistic religion, it needs to merely de-emphasize these aspects (make them dormant) and reactivate now dormant centrifugal aspects: specifically freedom of religion (there should be no complusion in religion – so says the Koran), and all Jihadism becomes simply the internal struggle inside the individual to overcome hate, and when one manifest hate externally, then they have lost the jihad. That kind of thing, Islam is very capable of and if it made those two changes, they could succeed in adapting to modernism and maybe become a very competitive and compelling theism (I style it ‘transcendental islam’). Addressing Islam’s problems in a constructive way like this, is another great possibility that an Obama presidency offers (because of his exposure to Islam – that few Americans have) – that we would never see from anyone else.
Bush could have eclipsed FDR, instead he tried to destroy FDRs legacy, and in the act he destroyed himself. There’s a lesson for the ages. Now watch Obama come along and not only eclipse FDR, but make Bush look so much worse as a result. He’ll have the rest of his earthly existence to contemplate that.
Or so I now hope.
I really, really want to believe you’re right, Tim. I’d love some more details on why you think Obama has the potential to lead a national route.
I took if from Frank Rich’s article. It is his word and his concept.
But he got it, I think, by comparing McCain to Obama. Then he looked at the demographic make up of where the country is heading. I think you can throw that on top of what happened the last two times out.
The weakness in Rich’s theory is that Obama’s campaign relies too much upon the youth movement, especially for it’s energy. In the past, the Democrats seem to always get the youth, but they don’t show up on election day. The people who do are in the last 3/5ths of their lives, especially the last fifth. When you think of that, the people who aren’t really concerned about how things will be in 2050 are dominating the vote. The people who have the most at stake in the future don’t vote. Youth don’t have staying power. That was seen in the Washington state caucus, where the young people showed up to vote, and then after that they left – so although Obama won handily the caucus, it was mostly Clinton people who stuck around for the entire proceedings in each precinct.
But this year does appear to be different. Obama is not just tapping into the youth, he some how seems to be able to channel them into productive and difference making work. Also, in the last eight years, the youth have watched their futures’ wither away, going from having one of the best inherentances any generation in any country could have to look forward to, to one that is rapidly cascading and collapsing into an abyss. That future is where they have to live the next 60 to 70 years. Leaving it on the Neocon/Movement conservativism of the Bush regime would have them living subsitence existence as they rolled into their golden years. Many of them have travelled overseas and realize it doesn’t have to be like this.
So I think the youth ought to be more motivated then ever.
But the most important thing is the demographic thing. The America’s of the 20somethings doesn’t look like the Americas of the 60somethings. The Republican party is old, white, country club types. From Rich’s perspective, the Republican’s can only kick the fear, greed and loathing only so far down the road before it catches up to them. Sooner or later, the candidate of the Democrats will become apparent. And if it’s Obama, the election will look alot like the one in 1996 – Clinton versus Dole. One thing that stood out between those two was the age and vitality of Clinton over the seventy year old Dole.
Once the Democrats have selected their candidate, then the choices become easier to contrast. What Rich suggest is a Republican party of old, white, stale, fear mongering, greedy, war mongering (bomb-Iran, 100 years in Iraq) that is entirely rooted in the past. Then compare that to Obama’s and then think about the future. White’s are on their way to becoming a minority in this country. Republican’s on a good day, at most, can only secure 75% of the white people. Obama looks like the future of America. Throw in his charisma, and salesmanship, and if he can avoid mistakes along the way.
Now, give that several months to settle in. He has a point. Could be a national route. A no turning back kind of route. Which would take things beyond 1964 or 1932.
I really hope that happens–but you have to remember that the image of past presidents are strongly affected by the views of a strong core of admirers. Look at Reagan: by all true measures, he wasn’t that great a president; he led us in to massive economic deficits, bumbled greatly on foreign policy, strengthened a trend of corporate and wealthy welfare and enrichment at the cost of the middle class and poor, was knee-deep in scandals of serious nature, eviscerated unions, began the seeding of the courts with radicals (remember, he gave us Rehnquist and Scalia) and helped birth the Neocon movement, and probably spent the last few years in office in a semi-forgetful fog.
But because he was an appealing speaker, gave massive inspiration to his own party, and he happened to come along just as the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse on its own and had talked tough to them, he is perceived as a hero worthy of the ranks of Washington and Lincoln. The bad parts of his administration are either glossed over or are made to look like the opposite of what they were (e.g., he was supposedly a genius on the economy and a master of foreign policy).
Bush may very well get the same treatment; instead of the collapse of communism, he got 9/11, and that excuses everything for a lot of people. Sure, many in his party are kind of fed up with him, but he has the same core base of die-hard never-give-up adulators who will try to get his face on Rushmore with Reagan’s.
I hope I am wrong. I really do. I hope that once he’s out of office that his supporters will feel like they can give up on the charade. It’s just that something tells me that won’t happen. Conservatives treasure their fictional heroes too much to give even Bush up.
That’s the best summation of Reagan and peoples’ opinions of him I’ve ever heard outside a classroom. As for Bush…as one of the youth that, as Tim pointed out, are finally putting their voices in and fighting for their future, I can promise I’ll do my best to make sure he’s remembered as the cheating, lying, ineffective bastard he is, annoying accent and all.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and winning the cold war should be credited to Truman who created the containment policy. Eisenhower predicted in 1954 that the Soviet Union would collapse in four or five decades. So, in a sense Eisenhower was giving Truman credit. Reagan just happened to be President when the time came along.
Maybe the biggest mistake made at that time was sending Chicago School economist over to Russia to show them how to run their economy – creating an unnecessary and massive implosion.
Another thing about Reagan, he began the era of failing governing institutions. Specifically the Savings and Loan debacle. I remember few details of it, but I do remember being shocked and surprised that an important financial industry that was supposed to be monitored failed across the board. Most unsettling.
And today, we have the ongoing problem with USDA and the beef industry.
Since Reagan, one thing is true – republicans just don’t want to govern. Their laisse faire attitude has us putting poison in our mouths.