These are my observations on the Pennsylvania primary.
Obama did slightly less well in Philadelphia than expected. He pulled in 65% of the vote and got a net of about 140,000 votes out of Philadelphia County. I expected him to get closer to 70%. His underperformance cost him about 20,000 votes. In the greater scheme of things, this was not hugely significant, but it cost him a chance to narrow the margin.
What really cost Obama was what happened in the northern suburbs of Bucks and Montgomery Counties. Obama simply got crushed in Bucks, giving up 29,000 votes. I think most people expected him to poll well in Bucks, perhaps even winning it. I also expected Obama to win Montgomery County easily. Instead he lost it 51-49. In Delaware and Chester Counties he won 55-45, but he wound up losing the suburbs decisively because of the lopsided result in Bucks. No one predicted this. The exit polls showed Obama winning the Philly suburbs with 57% of the vote. If he had won with 57%, he would have received about 240,000 votes in the burbs. Instead, it appears that he will get about 205,000. That’s a loss of another 35,000 votes. So, between Philly and the Philly suburbs, Obama underperformed expectations by about 55,000…or a 110,000 swing in Clinton’s favor. Whether Mayor Nutter and Governor Rendell are responsible, or whether it was just a lot of white people lying to pollsters, I don’t know.
Regardless, even outside of the Philly area, Obama came up about 100,000 additional votes short. Some of that comes from a very disappointing result out of Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) where Obama gave up another 27,000 votes. But the bulk of the loss came from one rural county after another giving Clinton over 65% of the vote. In addition, Clinton truly cleaned up in Luzerne County (Wilkes-Barre), pulling 33,000 votes out of that county alone. Clinton snagged another 26,000 votes out of Lackawanna County (Scranton).
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area was a kind of homebase for Clinton because her father grew up there, but I didn’t expect her to do anywhere near this well there.
In any case, we can try to find explanations for the results, but these are the areas where Obama underperformed. He did worse than the exit polls suggested he would do, and I have no easy answer for that either.
It doesn’t look like Bob Casey and Patrick Murphy’s endorsements helped at all, as they would have been most helpful in the Scranton and Bucks County areas. I didn’t expect those endorsements to work miracles, but I thought they would be at least somewhat helpful and there is no evidence that they were.
Xlnt analysis.
Well don’t forget Obama didn’t pay any street money so that probably cost him some. In the end, I think the only thing we can conclude is that Obama is a weaker candidate than we have assumed.
I still believe however, the he is better as a candidate and would be better as a president than Clinton, after all he’s still ahead.
the street money issue doesn’t explain anything.
This was decided in Bucks, Montgomery, Luzerne, Lackawanna, Allegheny, and in the margins in small counties. Like I said, he only lost about 20,000 in Philly. He lost as much or more in all those other places.
Any figures on late registering Democrats in these counties how many Republicans in Pennsylvania have switched to Democratic registration in recent months? How many primary voters can be attributed to the Limbaugh strategy in Pennsylvania?
My question as well. We heard so much about the massive number of new registrations, but so far I’ve read nothing that examines how these new Democrats voted. I’d have to guess for Hillary, but I know nothing!
A reporter on NPR just said that the majority of cross-over voters voted for Obama. However, he didn’t say where he got that figure. Also, it wasn’t clear what percentage of formerly registered Republicans voted in the Democratic primary for Hillary or Obama. I know some Republicans who are totally disgusted with Bush who would vote for Obama. I’m just worried about the Limbaugh fans.
Pittsburgh
Clinton 36,129
Obama 51,308
We thought he would take Pittsburgh and did. He also did very well in the well heeled burbs.
Racism explains why he lost in many of the areas around here. Pure and simple.
Not only that, he’s still 10 points ahead of Clinton among Democrats nationally. Now if that can only translate into victories in Indiana and North Carolina, maybe we can finally put this thing to bed.
Yes, if weak means trying to run an honest and positive campaign. Over and over again we see fear, vengefulness, aggression and hostility overriding hope and joining together for common goals and constructive change. After the 60’s, civil rights and environmental movements and Viet Nam, we felt a lot of hope. Now we see those gains slipping away. Perhaps we’ve lived too long!
This is a downer. But let’s get real: Clinton’s campaign is a dead man walking. It would have been nice to have put it to rest tonight, but the math makes Obama’s nomination inevitable.
Sure, a lot of whites, even Democrats, don’t want to vote for someone they consider to be black. But McCain has an awful lot of baggage that the corporate media has completely ignored. (Counterpunch reports that he collaborated with his North Vietnamese captors, appearing on North Vietnamese radio broadcasts directed at American soldiers on numerous occasions.) He is a very weak candidate, as is Hillary of course.
Obama’s people simply have to be better at going in for the kill with McCain than they have been with Hillary.
One of MSNBC’s professional windbags was saying Obama pretty much had to be nice to Clinton. I don’t remember why, but there you have it.
I don’t know if I’d frame it that way, but I think he has to go back to his message, and stop worrying about Clinton and start running against McCain.
Regardless, Hillary still failed today.
Obama got 59% in my district, which is pretty impressive considering the relative whiteness/affluence around here.
Well, yeah, all you “elitists”. 😉
Booman,
They weren’t manipulated and were smart enough to vote in their interests.
Their interests? NAFTA? Colombian trade? Anti-union? Pro-war in Iran?
Or anti-black man? Pro-fear?
Anyone know how Shickshinny went?
I think that what Obama discovered yesterday was old and white and was easily scared. It was a salute to fear politics.
Obama will still win the nomination. Yesterday was just an unpleasant view of America, and of Hillary. She will have to be even worse than what she has been recently, she will become uglier. The MSM will invest more in the “Comeback Kid” narrative, foul old racists like Buchanan will waddle in front of the camera. Ugh.
Bob,
The were smart enough to vote against NAFTA, Columbian trade, anti-union sentiment and fear.
Obama’s got game…ground game!
We’ll prevail. We may just need to get nasty.
It’s always a good feeling to know that your neighbors aren’t as crazy as the rest of your state. At least that’s what I tell myself here in my blue section of a red state. 🙂
Good analysis.
I have no way of quantifying this, but one thing the superdelegates ought to consider is that with Obama as the nominee, we will get this tremendous outpouring of base energy. His supporters are the type that leverage their enthsuiasm by networking, hitting the streets, blogging, giving money, sponsoring events, etc. Hillary’s core constituency is the old line, mom + pop Democrats (bless their hearts) who aren’t anywhere near as active and effective at building a campaign.
Base energy doesn’t matter. Obama ran a great campaign with great base energy. This election proved that the race card works and even a majority of Democrats won’t vote for a man with black skin. They would rather have a Republican clone who has been repeatedly caught in gross lies.
At least I will have the satisfaction of seeing McCain rip Hillary to shreds in the Fall over her lies about sniper fire compared to his actual combat experience.
But I’d much rather have a Democrat in the White House.
Only if she runs as a third party candidate. Clinton is done. That’s what makes it so pathetic. I doubt that there’s much money out there. She’s going to be crushed in North Carolina and could very likely lose in Indiana.
She’s needs to win way too many of the remaining delegates. That’s not going to happen.
I don’t know if it was the super nachos I ate last night but I felt sick and had trouble falling asleep. It was like going to a Thanksgiving dinner and some drunken relative says something disgustingly and disturbingly racist, and you look around at your loved ones, and only you seem to be offended.
Ugly.
Money out there? Not ours, that’s for certain.
If you look at her/his big supporters and sources of income, you see who will be running the White House if THEY are elected. But, of course, that’s not news to anyone here and hardly an astute observation.
was the campaigns decision to announce defeat two days before the election. Many people will not vote for someone they think will lose. That was the most bone headed move I have ever seen by a candidate or a campaign. “Please vote for me even though I am going to lose.” The campaign consultant who came up with that idea should be looking for a new job. We could have won this and put it away but instead decided to give up before election day. I am so disappointed in how the campaign handled this.
I do appreciate all the hard work everyone did in PA and we have to get past this and win the rest of the primaries and put up with this damn slug fest for a couple of more months.
I appreciate the “lowered expectations” game, but I could have done without Obama being quoted as having said he would lose. You can explain away the loss afterwards, but no need to do it before.
Booman writes:
“No one” predicted this?
I did.
But as usual..since my prognosis did not agree with yours, you not only mocked and ignored me, but then…in typical kneejerk supporter fashion…you forgot what you were quite plainly told.
Or am i just another “no one”?
I have no axe to grind. (Except survival, of course.)
So I can OBSERVE, Booman.
Not root.
And here:
And here, after people mentioned in replies to your truly pie-eyed post A Look at the Internals that the Clinton campaign’s 11 point estimate was full of shit:
I bracketed it.
10 it is.
Wake up, Booman.
Get rational.
Hubris is a bitch.
This is the way politics is played, and your man is losing the end of the war. If you want him to win…and believe it or not, so do I…then STOP MAKING BELIEVE THAT HE CANNOT LOSE. Stop making believe that “the numbers” are what counts. I saw an anti-cable ad recently where some hustler at a board meeting proposes that the cable people claim to have 5000 channels or some other foolish thing in order to fight off Dish Network. The Chairman of the Board says “We can’t say that!!!” and the hustler answers:
“90% of all statistics can be made to lie.”
“50% of the time.”
Yup.
FORGET the statistics.
Just look at who’s going to be voting.
Plenty of them can relate to Clinton, especially in her present pants-suit-and-haircut-from-WalMart incarnation.
Almost NONE besides minorities, the upper-middle class, young people and dedicated leftiness shmoon intellectuals can relate to Obama.
Personally.
He has no dumb act.
Hillary has honed hers to a fine edge.
Bet on it.
And the result? After all the political parsing of neighborhoods and districts is through?
55-45.
Or worse.
JUST as it will be in Indiana, which resembles Pennsylvania to a “T” except there is no Philadelphia there and the KKK is still alive and well.
Watch.
And the skittish stupordelegates can be stampeded.
Motherfucker better learn how to bowl, drink coffee with the good ol’ boys ‘n girls and imply at least as much “Yee HAW!!!” in his posture as has Hillary Working Mother over the next two weeks.
Or of course learn how to say “Yassuh, Ma’am!!!” as the Vice Prez.
I can see it coming.
The argument that will be made?
The early primaries were a brief love affair, an infatuation with a pretty new face. But the honeymoon is over, and now it’s back to steady ol’ Mama for the duration if y’all know what’s good fer ya.
She waited Bill out and now she’s waiting the party out.
Watch.
Deep.
Later…
AG
“Yee HAW!!!” killed Dean’s campaign. You can’t fake being a redneck. Obama is real.
I am afraid that this is true.
And his “reality”…the reality that he is an incredibly intelligent and perceptive man…will eventually doom his candidacy just as it did that of Adlai Stevenson.
Because Hillary CAN “act”.
And McCain doesn’t have to.
So it goes.
AG
It does seem that America wants a redneck idiot, even though they have seen what that does to them. I confess that I don’t know what people are thinking.
“He had Rice & Powell in the cabinet, he wasn’t redneck enough.”? “He wasn’t stupid enough, sometimes I could figure out what he was saying.”?
Mamma mia!
Right before the Ohio primary:
A 3 AM call on a red phone. Mind you, not on a cell phone, if I’m not mistaken, a tried-and-tested fixed phone, right out of the white house—Georgie is always photographed on a clunky fixed phone, like a toy phone—and out of a Disney flashback to the warm and fuzzy past.
Right before the Pennsylvania primary:
A hysterical hotchpotch of September 11, 2001, Osama, Iran and every damn disaster since the Great Crash and Depression, including Pearl Harbor, seasoned with a strong dose of Scaife wingnuttery and dollar signs.
And right before Indiana? Fear, fear and more fear. The darkness can make you feel so afraid unless there is someone to soothe and protect you.
If Obama takes the Clinton fear bait, he’s finished, McSame moves into the white house, with Cindy, and the down-ticket Democratic candidates get slaughtered. Even if he doesn’t take the bait, the same can happen.
Arthur Gilroy, you’re a pain in the neck.
The truth hurts sometimes.
I have no solutions to this problem other than one. To solve ANY problem, one first has to figure out exactly what that problem is.
There are two problems here.
1-Obama. He’s too smart, too refined for his own good as far as national political office is concerned. That is what I am seeing, anyway. He has to somehow establish his creds as “one of the people”. He is distrusted by many Americans not because of his race but because it is so obvious that anyone who has risen to his position in America today with the drawback of a racially mixed heritage must be an extraordinarily gifted human being, and his rightful pride in his gifts sticks out all over him. (Rightful if you believe in anything but genetically-imposed manifest destiny, anyway. Which I do not.)
As Maureen Dowd so accurately pinned him in early March,
This is NOT an attractive characteristic to much of America.
Sorry.
Ma Clinton is doing everything in her power to knock him OFF of that pedestal. She is succeeding in doing so, and he is not handling it all that well. Personally, I would like to see him get fighting fucking mad and smack her upside the rhetorical head, but that is “not his style”. I understand that he is dancing with what brung him this far, but this is a new dance. More of a mosh pit, actually.
He needs a Peter Finch/Howard Beale/Network/”Mad as hell!!!” moment.
Maybe that would be his Dean “ARRRRGH!” moment as well, but he has to take that chance. I have maintained for a number of years that the first national candidate to stand up…after establishing his sanity and general bona fides, which indeed our Magic Prince has done quite sufficiently…and publicly lay it out in language that we ALL understand (As in “FUCK this politeness shit. Time to get DOWN!!!) would win by landslide proportions.
2-His supporters on the left. More precisely, their continuing demonization of Hillary Clinton. This is more than just counterproductive, it is stupid. It drives her ever further centerward and it precludes any peace in the party no matter which way the final result goes.
My own hope? It is that somehow against all odds and in the face of all egos these two actually love this country enough to unite on one ticket. But I am not holding my breath.
So it goes.
Presnit McCain?
Get out the tasers, Ma; we’re headed back where we came from again.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
No, they will not run on one ticket. Obama would be crazy to chain himself to Mrs. Clinton, who is going under, one way or the other. She’s being demonized? No, she demonizes herself. Just her statement about Iran is enough to know that she is neither sincere nor reliable. Of course she knows better than I do that Iran has no nuclear weapon and that Israel has more than enough of them to wipe out Iran ten times over. Great, huh, a radioactive cloud floating around the world. Funny that, there is talk of nuclear weapons but, nowadays, none of radioactivity coming down, for instance, somewhere in the vicinity of her house in New York State. War and fear, fear and war, over and over. There is nothing else left except war and fear, fear and war. Yesterday (?) I read a reasonable statement by the Spanish foreign minister (? anyway someone in the government) that it is unacceptable—think of it, unacceptable, no one in the US would say it exactly like that—that the world wakes up every morning to so much violence (he meant in Iraq, I think). Now, I’m not saying that the US is responsible for all the violence, I’m just saying that the US is responsible for sparking the violence, and I’m also appalled by how much everyone seems to think that all this violence is some kind of natural phenomenon and not a creation of people in a certain time and in a certain place. No matter what, what does the US have to do in Iraq anyway, halfway around the world. No one talks about all this. The US is god’s gift to the world. I’m sick of it! No, AG, you are not a pain in the neck. It’s just that sometimes you hit the nail on the head.
She waited Bill out and now she’s waiting the party out.
LOL! Right. But I’m here to tell you she waiting for nothing or second place.
Tragically it’s NOT the Economy stupid, It’s RACE!
Bill,
Both. These stupid bigots don’t want to see any black person do better than they are.
It’s not TWO! It’s the country.
That’s the tragedy we are all living. God knows, I want Obama to win. He is what this country needs and he can restore the dream. BUT- the disgrace of this country is that we talk the talk but we don’t walk the walk. Sad! So Sad!
My advice to Barack
After Hillary’s win in Pennsylvania last night, a couple of things are clear: focusing on a low-level gutter campaign against Hillary by Obama is a losing strategy and the real focus for the leading candidate should be the defeat of McCain.
So, with Indiana and North Carolina coming up, I thing Barack should focus on campaigning against McCain and ignore Hillary entirely. First of all, that will be a frustrating situation for Hillary, who really needs Obama to jump when she hits him with a negative. If he ignores her, she is perceived as powerless.Secondly, McCain is campaigning against the Democrats right now… and he is focusing on Obama in particular. There is no good reason to give the Republican such a headstart on the National election.
Obama has the campaign organization and the money to go hard into campaigning as the leading Democrat against McCain. Hillary is nearly broke. If she pushes even harder after Obama the way she did in Pennsylvania, it will be very costly for her, and will alienate many Democrats who will see Obama as above the negatives.
There really is no other way to proceed successfully.
Under The lobsterScope
I tend to agree with this strategy. You can’t get to a positive future by focusing on a negative past. In a sense Clinton is running on the past. Old fears. Old hatred.
I had hoped for an Obama victory, but I suspected that we’d get this. Anyone have a delegate breakdown?
I think Obama already is. IIRC, he’s refused to debate Hillary in NC. Her campaign started to pull some ridiculous crap, trying to turn the “debate” into another pre-scripted pro-Hillary PR stunt like the ABC debate, and Obama’s people just walked away. If he starts campaigning hard against McCain and gains another two or three points in the polls against him, no-one will be able to justify pushing him aside.
i dont see anything to smile over today
if obama is going to be the nominee i would feel better if after all that money he has spent and after months of media scrutiny and tons of debates and the superior ground game and after all the crap coming from camp clinton…i would feel much better if he could convince more people to vote for him over clinton…..if he cant convince people to vote for him over clinton in states like pa, ohio, florida then how will he convince people to vote for him over mccain? a lot of people are saying the same thing about obama that i hear people say about clinton….i would love to see an african american be president, just not THIS african american….i swear americans would rather vote for colin powell the liar with no balls who helped lead us to war than would vote for obama…..maybe obama really is too black….maybe experience matters more than we think…maybe the media is completely in control and we are just puppets in a show….i just dont have a lot of positive feelings about november right now whether its clinton or obama as the nominee.
and as bad as i feel about that topic…..im way more freaked out by how bad anne dicker did in the first district race for fumos seat….im glad dogherty didnt win but larry “fumo” farnese , handpicked by our local crook who will be in prison next year if he lives that long, with no experience or message or history or even ties to the district except his address wins the nomination…..i guess it will be nice to have an openly gay guy representing in harrisburg but i was really hoping anne could pull this out…i thought after getting nutter elected it was a new day in philly but it seems to be the same old philly machine wins the day kind of thing.
bummer.
Yeah, but the argument goes the other way, too. Clinton still trails overall in popular vote, cannot come near winning pledged delegates, etc. I suspect her margin of victory in PA will be erased in NC. She can’t win, she can only delay losing.
I suspect the trickle of superdelegates will start announcing for Obama.
But the media? There are no friends of progressivism there.
yes..he will probably be the nominee…but my question and many people’s question is this:
if obama cant convince the voters in states like ny, oh, pa, fl, to vote for him….after raising and spending tons of money, after beautiful speeches and record setting rallies and waves of endorsements and tons of debates and all this media coverage…if he cant convince people to vote for him over the demon spawn clinton…then how can he convince people to vote for him over mccain….who like it or not comes across as extemely likable and we are told over and over that likeability is the number one reason candidates get elected.
im worried….the dems should be able to clean up in november and im worried neither clinton nor obama can beat mccain….the media isnt helping at all.
10/10 for concern trolling, 0/10 for actual content. Running against Republicans is very different from running against Democrats.
Obama’s playing completely differently against Clinton than he would against McCain. Look very carefully at how he’s campaigned. He’s run entirely on his own merits, referring to Clinton only in very carefully neutral terms. He hasn’t tried to follow up on her many lies, half-truths, absurd statements, or moments of outright insanity. Why? Because he understands that she is, however unlikely, a possible Democratic nominee for the general. He could probably obliterate her if he wanted to, but doing so would harm the party, so he doesn’t.
Instead, he focuses on informing and registering voters, solidifying his support where it exists and building it up where it doesn’t. It’s New-type Politics, the same style that Dean used in 2004.
And finally, let’s turn your quote around:
Sound absurd yet? Yes? Good. We’re done here.
absurd is comparing hawaii and south carolina to any of pa, oh, ny, nj, fl etc….little states v big states…and i dont think obama will win any you mentioned except illinois….you are comparing apples to oranges.
which states do you think obama will win in nov over mccain.
seriously
there is a very good chance he wont win ohio, florida, or pa…..booman said in the past he thinks he can win virginia…i have seen several people say he cant.
i would like to see the black person show me they can beat the white person in a state that matters.
colin powell is the only black person who could win an election right now….even though he is a lying, ball less douchebag…..he could win….americans are that stupid….i cant change that fact….i dont support that fact…..i just believe that fact….obama cant change that fact….im convinced of that….progressive left winger fringe bloggers aside…..im talking about the real world.
Over a Clinton talking point? Really? I thought it the dumbest talking point of the evening. Why? Let’s use the simple numbers from the election:
Barack Obama 1,042,297
John McCain 585,447
Those are the election tallies last night. That doesn’t even include the Republican and Independents who plan on voting for Obama in Nov., but couldn’t vote in this primary.
You’re worried? Seriously?
Hillary Clinton 1,258,245
The TV tells me that 60% of Clinton supporters won’t support Obama for whatever reason. That’s 503,299 then headed over to Obama. That’s almost the number of people voting for McCain. And you’re worried…because the Clinton’s tell you to be.
christ im even more worried now
first time i saw those numbers
mccain wasnt even really running against anyone and still people showed up at the polls….when all the old white people show up in november and dont have hillary to vote for and dont want to vote for obama they are going to vote mccain.
we are going to get slaughtered.
will you relax? You hang out with too many old white people. McCain is not the old McCain. He’s got Fred Thompsonitis. No energy. No charisma left. And he’s selling dogshit.
Provided we have time to unify the party, McCain is going to lose horribly.
booman i want to believe that…but mccain comes out of everything smelling like a rose instead of dogshit.
and you are right i do hang out with too many old white people….but i drove the old black ladies from my old neighborhood to the polls yesterday and they all voted for obama, they all said they would happily vote for clinton in november…they didnt seem to care about what a fucked up campaign she has run and what a demon she is….they dont have computers and they dont watch cable tv news.
how many old clinton supporters are going to vote for obama in nov?
I speak no ill of my friends, but Dicker’s campaign kind of came apart at the seams at the end. And it got in the paper. At least Doc lost.
Obama has got to focus more on working-class issues, and also demonstrate some cultural understanding (if not affinity). I prefer Obama, but I’m frequently disappointed by his behavior. It’s almost as if he feels uncomfortable when trying to connect with that demographic.
He also should talk a lot more about outsourcing and how trade hurts manufacturing. “Hope” doesn’t cut it. He needs to hint at some sort of protectionism, at the very least.
In ancient times we would have said that ‘Obama needs to come down to earth a little bit, dirty his hands more’.
..You have an impressive list of dirty tricks that occurred yesterday that didn’t hot the media.
I’m concerned that the voting problems in Philly may be just a warm up for the general.